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I just watched this movie a week ago, searched TL and only found a year ago thread about it so I decided to make this one.
Steal this film (click to download) is a documentary about intellectual copyright and piracy. It has 2 parts but part one I found a bit silly, you don't really need to watch that since it's mostly about a specific police raid that happen against the PirateBay in Sweden and some propaganda about their website. But part two is very interesting, it shows a historical analysis of how copyright laws and piracy started and goes back to the invention of printing. I personally did not know the term "pirate" were used for people who would manually print books hundreds of years ago.
So I wanted to know what do you guys think about the subject? I've read in another threads some of you saying that pirating is inhumanly awful only because it's illegal without ever pondering why is it illegal in the first place or who are these laws created for. I personally can think of dozens of pro-pirate arguments but only one single pro-intellectual-copyright argument (it makes some few rich people...richer! it's good for a few who economically benefits off copyrights).
So what do you think about it?
edit: Sorry for my bad over-generalization when I said the only pro intellectual property argument was "it makes some few rich people...richer". That was a sad wording on my part, I didn't think people would take it literally. Many people flamed me on replies because of that and it was well deserved. What I was trying to mean was "it's good for a few who economically benefits off copyrights". Of course not everyone who has a job related to entertainment is "rich". But they're still a very small few compared against those who copyrights harm.
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I'm going to say what I always say when it comes to these things.
Piracy is stealing another persons work, and saying it's not is just bullshit. I do think however, that artists and moviemakers and what not, are charging WAAAAAAAY too much for a god damn album or a dvd movie.
Before you go off saying "lol like you've never downloaded anything" Oh yes, I have, in fact, I'm probably one of those who take absolute FULL advantage of it. Not because I think it's actually my right to do so, but because I can, and as long as I can, I will continue to do so.
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United States12235 Posts
I work in the game industry. Games are extremely expensive to produce and maintain, and gamers themselves are extremely harsh critics of products. Most games are expensive to buy, but developers rely on those sales to pay their employees and invest in future games. At my company, QA testers get paid from the company payroll, but QA leads, engineers, producers and occasionally managers get paid a flat salary then a bonus based on the units sold. The bonus I got last year was around 20% of last year's salary as a QA lead. The amount of the bonus is directly related to what the company can afford to give each employee based on overall company sales, position within the company, and performance. I'm in production now so I can't say yet what this year's bonus will be, but it will certainly depend on how our sales did. Because piracy directly affects sales numbers negatively (every copy pirated is a copy not sold) I think it's safe to say that sold copies directly pay a significant portion of my salary, and that of my coworkers. I can most definitely assure you that I'm not rich, as well =]
EDIT: Regarding "every copy pirated is a copy not sold", I am intentionally generalizing here. There are infrequent cases where people use piracy as a "try before you buy" method, and there are cases which are equally as infrequent where people will pirate without any intention of buying the product. In most situations though, neither of those are the case, and the generalization holds true.
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Belgium6771 Posts
On October 04 2008 05:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:
I work in the game industry. Games are extremely expensive to produce and maintain, and gamers themselves are extremely harsh critics of products. Most games are expensive to buy, but developers rely on those sales to pay their employees and invest in future games. At my company, QA testers get paid from the company payroll, but QA leads, engineers, producers and occasionally managers get paid a flat salary then a bonus based on the units sold. The bonus I got last year was around 20% of last year's salary as a QA lead. The amount of the bonus is directly related to what the company can afford to give each employee based on overall company sales, position within the company, and performance. I'm in production now so I can't say yet what this year's bonus will be, but it will certainly depend on how our sales did. Because piracy directly affects sales numbers negatively (every copy pirated is a copy not sold) I think it's safe to say that sold copies directly pay a significant portion of my salary, and that of my coworkers. I can most definitely assure you that I'm not rich, as well =]
What company do you work for?
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On October 04 2008 05:31 meRz wrote:
Piracy is stealing another persons work, and saying it's not is just bullshit. It is stealing because the laws say so. Now why do the laws say so? Laws are created to protect and benefit one person or entity. Those laws definitely doesn't benefit myself, neither does it benefit 99% of the population.
Excalibur_Z, your post could be resumed to "copyright benefits me, I make money off it so does my colleagues. Piracy reduces our income, therefore pirating is a bad thing.". Yea it's bad, for you. Not for myself nor for 99% of the population.
Like I said in my first post, both Excalibur and Merz are using the only pro-copyright argument I know that exists: it makes money for a few people (very very few people).
There many other ways for you (Excalibur_Z or anyone on gaming biz) and your company to make money off software other than copyright sales. Sponsors, ads and mainly services. Take WoW for example, it's the most successful game today and the software is free, you are just charged for the intense support service. Google as another example, a huge software company that has success written all over it. All their sofware are free. They live off charging for services and ad revenue.
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???? what?
It's not stealing because the law says so, it's stealing because thats exactly what stealing is. Also those laws benefit EVERYONE, not just "1%" of the population. What kind of bullshit logic is that.
In fact, your whole post is trash. Excal just explained to you how it directly effects him, and that it isn't just a few ripples in a rich pond that gets affected and you come back with this crap.
It's even more hilarious that you suggest for software companies to make money in other ways beyond...selling their products and services. You're a fucking idiot.
Sponsors? Ads? Do you even know ANYTHING about the gaming industry? Do you know how stupid it would be for 3rd party developers to even TRY and get sponsorship without a track record or buy ads with no $$?
World of Warcraft IS NOT FREE. The subscription price you pay is added on to the initial price of the game. Google's business model is different than most (like 95%+) software companies in the fact that they are an internet search software site. They have no other way to make money besides ads and sponsors. Get it through your thick skull: every company can not do that. In fact, even if they could who are they to listen to some dumbass on the internet telling them they make too much money for their own good. Pathetic.
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I wouldn't pirate PC games if there was an easy and convenient test/demo service >.<
I've wasted too much much money on games that turn out to be crap. Thank god I didn't pay for spore; it was fun for like 3 hours.
That's my #1 piracy motivation
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I saw that in my ITGS class, pretty nice.
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On October 04 2008 06:17 VIB wrote:It is stealing because the laws say so. Now why do the laws say so? Laws are created to protect and benefit one person or entity. Those laws definitely doesn't benefit myself, neither does it benefit 99% of the population.
Excalibur_Z, your post could be resumed to "copyright benefits me, I make money off it so does my colleagues. Piracy reduces our income, therefore pirating is a bad thing.". Yea it's bad, for you. Not for myself nor for 99% of the population.
Like I said in my first post, both Excalibur and Merz are using the only pro-copyright argument I know that exists: it makes money for a few people (very very few people).
There many other ways for you (Excalibur_Z or anyone on gaming biz) and your company to make money off software other than copyright sales. Sponsors, ads and mainly services. Take WoW for example, it's the most successful game today and the software is free, you are just charged for the intense support service. Google as another example, a huge software company that has success written all over it. All their sofware are free. They live off charging for services and ad revenue.
It is stealing because it is. It only doesn't feel as bad to be stealing in this manner because there's nothing physical being taken. As for saying that the law doesn't make sense since it only benefits a few people who stand to profit from not being stolen from, would this suggest that laws prohibiting shoplifting are silly? It would benefit so many people if they could all just walk in to the store to take what they want and leave.
Regardless of whether or not you do it, it's ridiculous to not think you're stealing, and it's ridiculous to think their work shouldn't be protected. Even I download some music and games, but at least I don't try to justify my actions by faulting the law and claiming that those few affected are just selfish.
By the way, World of Warcraft is not free. Google is not a game or music. Would you prefer it if your games all required an internet connection and a monthly fee to play? Or maybe you're suggesting all software developers should go into the web advertising business and quit creating games.
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On October 04 2008 05:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:(every copy pirated is a copy not sold)
Wrong.
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Excalibur_Z, your post could be resumed to "copyright benefits me, I make money off it so does my colleagues. Piracy reduces our income, therefore pirating is a bad thing.". Yea it's bad, for you. Not for myself nor for 99% of the population
What a ridiculous thing to say. You are just going to do what's good for yourself without regard for laws? There are many many things in the world that are for sale, and stealing any of them is both illegal and immoral. ex: I would really really like a car, and there are some for sale in the car lot down the street. There are laws that prevent me from stealing it, but those laws only benefit a few people, not me or 99% of the population. Therefore those laws are wrong, and I should steal it anyway. Ludicrous.
p.s. Regarding WoW, I would just like to point out a contradiction in your using that example. Yes, it is the most successful game, and yes you can get the game for free, but it wasn't always free. It's free now because of how successful it was. They have so many subscribers that they can afford to give the game itself away. But this is a problem for other developers who have fewer subscribers and need to sell copies of the game to make money. They lose potential customers who take the cheaper route and play WoW. Thus, making the game free only made, to quote your first post "some few rich people... richer!"
EDIT: evidently I'm a slow poster, I thought this was coming right after your last post lol
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Piracy is okay because I'm poor and everybody I know buys pirated games.
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I agree with Ace's points.
Loads of people are affected in this not just this so called "%1"
You gotta know that pirating IS stealing. There's something with a price, you take it without permission from the creator, that's stealing.
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Wow so much resistance. Thought people on this forum would be a little bit smarter than the usual 
Did you guys even watch the movie? It explains some points you guys are debating so I wouldn't need to answer it all over again for the people comparing piracy to shoplifting.
Ace, I'm "a fucking idiot" for saying companies shouldn't sell their services? I said the exact opposite, read properly before you reply in that tone. Who is the "fucking idiot"? And yes the software (intellectual property) in WoW is free, you can download it in their webpage, you pay exclusively for services: cd-key (which isn't even necessary to charge for) + monthly fee. I'm not even arguing if it's right or wrong for them. My only point in citing WoW was to leave it clear that it exists a gaming business model where you are not charged for intellectual property. So you guys stop freaking out with "but omg all companies would break, there is no alternative!!!"
Get it through your thick skull: every company can not do that. In fact, even if they could who are they to listen to some dumbass on the internet telling them they make too much money for their own good. Pathetic. I'm not telling anyone to do anything. Piracy is a growing reality and we all have to deal with it. All I'm saying is "adapt or...don't" if they choose to not adapt it's them who are breaking, not me. There is this chinese proverb quoted on the Part 1 movie:
"When a windstorm comes, people divides in two groups: those who hide in shelter and those who build windmills"
I'm not telling anyone to build windmills. If you believe hiding in a shelter and calling me a "fucking idiot" is the only solution then it's up to you ^^
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do you even know what an IP is? you really are an idiot. WOW's IP is not free, if it was they'd be in deep shit from competition.
Do you even know what a business model is? Do you know how software is designed? You don't. This is why I'm calling you a fucking idiot. You come into the forums clamoring for us to adapt to piracy, when you have no fucking clue how these same things you're trying to steal are even created. Then you says we're not smart?
Did you even READ that other guy's posts about how WoW is "free"? You didn't. Just let your topic die because it's clear to anyone that knows anything on this subject that you just watched some random video and decided you became an expert on the subject. Get lost.
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On October 04 2008 07:19 VIB wrote:
"When a windstorm comes, people divides in two groups: those who hide in shelter and those who build windmills"
I'm not telling anyone to build windmills. If you believe hiding in a shelter and calling me a "fucking idiot" is the only solution then it's up to you ^^
Whats wrong with building windmills?
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I design software myself, I'm pretty sure I do. O.o Yes I read the other guy's post about WoW, it's is just... wrong.. which is why I didn't even bother. I bought the WoW CD myself when the game first launched, they were only selling the CDs with software before they had the infrastructure to sell the key directly from their own servers.
Calling me a "fucking idiot" when you have no idea who I am and completely miss the point and don't understand a single drop of what is being discussed doesn't make you look much different from that yourself O.o
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On October 04 2008 07:29 dinmsab wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2008 07:19 VIB wrote:
"When a windstorm comes, people divides in two groups: those who hide in shelter and those who build windmills"
I'm not telling anyone to build windmills. If you believe hiding in a shelter and calling me a "fucking idiot" is the only solution then it's up to you ^^ Whats wrong with building windmills? I'm sorry if you're joking, I can't really tell the difference at this point after the lack of sense in the last few posts 
If you are not joking: read again, I'm saying building windmill = adapting = good; hiding = refusing to adapt = bad.
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VIB you are so wrong in so many places - I'm not even gonna start. Please quit.
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VIB, Piracy is wrong, hands down.. you cant argue with that. Although your point about software developers needing to adapt to the situation makes sense. Piracy is widely practised in developing countries simply because of the fact most people can't afford to purchase these software, but that doesnt legalize piracy, no. Its still stealing no matter your reasons. Software developers need to understand the situation and stop being greedy.For example, putting a much easier to swallow price tag would definitely get them more sales.
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On October 04 2008 05:31 meRz wrote:
I'm going to say what I always say when it comes to these things.
Piracy is stealing another persons work, and saying it's not is just bullshit.
On October 04 2008 06:17 VIB wrote:
It is stealing because the laws say so.
On October 04 2008 06:28 Ace wrote:
It's not stealing because the law says so, it's stealing because thats exactly what stealing is. Also those laws benefit EVERYONE, not just "1%" of the population. What kind of bullshit logic is that.
On October 04 2008 06:35 poingy wrote:
It is stealing because it is. It only doesn't feel as bad to be stealing in this manner because there's nothing physical being taken.
On October 04 2008 06:50 TonyL2 wrote:
You gotta know that pirating IS stealing. There's something with a price, you take it without permission from the creator, that's stealing.
Piracy is not stealing.
Piracy is copyright infringement.
Copyright infringement is different from stealing.
That is a massive pet peeve of mine. Pirating a game is not stealing. Stealing, or theft, is defined by physical removal of property. Copyright infringement is defined by illegally copying something. At least in U.S. law, there is a fundamental difference between the two (one is a criminal offense, one is a civil offense). They are both illegal, but that doesn't make them the same.
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United States24682 Posts
On October 04 2008 05:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:
every copy pirated is a copy not sold
Not to nitpick, but this isn't really correct. That's assuming that if the person didn't pirate it, that they would have bought it. But you can make an accurate similar statement: for every case where somebody would have bought a game, but didn't because pirating it was available, your company loses out on the money it needs to pay its employees etc).
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United States12235 Posts
On October 04 2008 07:57 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2008 05:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:
every copy pirated is a copy not sold Not to nitpick, but this isn't really correct. That's assuming that if the person didn't pirate it, that they would have bought it. But you can make an accurate similar statement: for every case where somebody would have bought a game, but didn't because pirating it was available, your company loses out on the money it needs to pay its employees etc).
That is very true, and I was intentionally oversimplifying it. You could also mention where people use piracy as a "try before you buy" opportunity. It's infrequent, but it does happen. I was speaking in a very general sense.
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On October 04 2008 07:19 VIB wrote:Wow so much resistance. Thought people on this forum would be a little bit smarter than the usual Did you guys even watch the movie? It explains some points you guys are debating so I wouldn't need to answer it all over again for the people comparing piracy to shoplifting. Ace, I'm "a fucking idiot" for saying companies shouldn't sell their services? I said the exact opposite, read properly before you reply in that tone. Who is the "fucking idiot"? And yes the software (intellectual property) in WoW is free, you can download it in their webpage, you pay exclusively for services: cd-key (which isn't even necessary to charge for) + monthly fee. I'm not even arguing if it's right or wrong for them. My only point in citing WoW was to leave it clear that it exists a gaming business model where you are not charged for intellectual property. So you guys stop freaking out with "but omg all companies would break, there is no alternative!!!" Show nested quote +Get it through your thick skull: every company can not do that. In fact, even if they could who are they to listen to some dumbass on the internet telling them they make too much money for their own good. Pathetic. I'm not telling anyone to do anything. Piracy is a growing reality and we all have to deal with it. All I'm saying is "adapt or...don't" if they choose to not adapt it's them who are breaking, not me. There is this chinese proverb quoted on the Part 1 movie: "When a windstorm comes, people divides in two groups: those who hide in shelter and those who build windmills" I'm not telling anyone to build windmills. If you believe hiding in a shelter and calling me a "fucking idiot" is the only solution then it's up to you ^^
Crime rates are higher when society isn't educated
You can't expect everyone to download a 500 MB movie just to argue with you...paraphrase the movie or something if it's so good at explaining your point
Really though, I don't see how you think piracy is good; just because everyone pirates software doesn't mean piracy is right. Hell, this is probably how Hitler took over Germany. "Everyone else is doing it. We can too!"
Excalibur's point can't be summed up in: "copyright benefits me, I make money off it so does my colleagues. Piracy reduces our income, therefore pirating is a bad thing." What he's saying is that piracy does not only harm the rich, but also their employees (and if you really want to look further, their families and the economy as well)
I'm not saying that software companies shouldn't adapt; I'm saying that piracy is wrong. And really, is it possible to block out piracy? And realistically, if everyone got their games/music/videos from piracy, would companies even bother to make them?
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On October 04 2008 07:54 CDRdude wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2008 05:31 meRz wrote:
I'm going to say what I always say when it comes to these things.
Piracy is stealing another persons work, and saying it's not is just bullshit. Show nested quote +On October 04 2008 06:28 Ace wrote:
It's not stealing because the law says so, it's stealing because thats exactly what stealing is. Also those laws benefit EVERYONE, not just "1%" of the population. What kind of bullshit logic is that. Show nested quote +On October 04 2008 06:35 poingy wrote:
It is stealing because it is. It only doesn't feel as bad to be stealing in this manner because there's nothing physical being taken.
Show nested quote +On October 04 2008 06:50 TonyL2 wrote:
You gotta know that pirating IS stealing. There's something with a price, you take it without permission from the creator, that's stealing. Piracy is not stealing.
Piracy is copyright infringement.
Copyright infringement is different from stealing.That is a massive pet peeve of mine. Pirating a game is not stealing. Stealing, or theft, is defined by physical removal of property. Copyright infringement is defined by illegally copying something. At least in U.S. law, there is a fundamental difference between the two (one is a criminal offense, one is a civil offense). They are both illegal, but that doesn't make them the same.
Agreed.
And noone is ever going to convince me that sharing something with my friends is wrong.
Just no, that's not how I was brought up.
As someone living in a country where a 12 year old girl can get _raped_ in a public bath house and noone intervenes I view torrent sites as something beautiful.
They are built around the principle that a few people do a lot of work gaining nothing in the process but the enjoyment of others. (Sort of like running the TSL  )
I can not detest that.
The industry has to adapt.
Blizzard makes money because their games come with other services in addition to the software it self thus rending piracy pointless.
Sins of a Solar Empire sold well because it was a great game.
Maybe in the future there won't be Musical Super stars anymore, because that amount of money won't be pumped into that industry.
I could care less though. There are SOO many talented musicans and there will still be more than enough money around for them to make a living of.
The film industry will hurt though. Perhaps even disapear, that would be sad but most likely the show can go on with income from cinemas as long as the stars lower their wages a couple of millions.
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9070 Posts
film industry wont disappear because of the piracy, cause they are making money in the theaters the weeks after the movie is in the public scene and the piracy doesnt have the time to kickin. As you know it takes a while for a movie to appear in the torrent with descent quality, so the money lost due too bad dvd sells are just pain in the ass. the music suffers the most. the guys from metallica dont give a fuck about piracy and the fact that their album was to download everywhere a week before it was even in the stores, cause the band is pretty much on tour for so years and the bastards are making money like shit from their concerts. But for the unknown artists the piracy is quite deadly
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A very important point about the copyright stuff is the motivation behind it. It's basically fundamental for capitalism as such. It's motivation for the people to found a new softare company and develope a product that's good enough to earn them money. It's their time and work they put into it and they should get the money for that. If everyone could just copy the product without paying for it then why should anyone put a lot of time and effort in developing new software? They could as well just do something else to earn their living. Piracy as such is just the same as stealing, imho. That's why the 1% example is absolutely stupid. It does in fact affect everyone.
Years ago I did buy maybe 2 out of 10 games I played, mainly because I didn't have the money to buy them. But today I buy all the games I play but only because I rarely play new games and I only if I hat the chance to try them out.
Although I think
(every copy pirated is a copy not sold)
Isn't true at all. I can just speak for myself but I played a lot of games I would've never ever bought.
The problem is that game demo's are so rare today that you don't get a chance to play the game before you decide to buy it or not.
On the other hand I think VIB is absolutely right about the windmills. And this is where the music industry especially fails. I prefer downloading music because there is no other considerable option. I can't/don't want to use the commercial online music stores because I'm doing a lot of copy-here-copy-there, backing up and other stuff so a copy/burn limitation on the files is nothing I could go along with. In addition many of this music can be listened to with only one specific player (like iTunes) which I don't want to do either. Buying CD's is pretty bad, too, because I would have to go to the store and buy the CD, rip the music and most likely have problems with stupid copy protection crap and it's fucking expensive as well. After that I could just throw the CD away... And my beloved band gets only a small percentage of this money anyways. Of course, they don't get anything as long as I download it, but I would pay them three times the money they would normally get if they would give me permission to download it.
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"the industry should just adapt"
and how are they going to do that? Console games can't, musicians can't, and most videogames that are not MMOs or FPS can't.
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about the windmill thing
"How should industries adapt to growing piracy rates?"
is an entirely different issue from
"Is piracy wrong?"
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Not only that, but it's like posters here feel like they are in the right for pirating things and that the Software Industry should cater to THEM and find a better way not to get their stuff stolen.
@klackon: what does anything you typed have to do with legitimizing you for stealing?
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On October 04 2008 08:37 Ace wrote:
"the industry should just adapt"
and how are they going to do that? Console games can't, musicians can't, and most videogames that are not MMOs or FPS can't.
I don't know anything at all about console games.
Musicians most definatly can. Live concerts beeing the most obvious way. Playing on the streets another one. There are soo many people who love to produce music for its own sake. The quality won't go down just because billions are not pumped into the industry via albums anymore.
In my post I mentioned blizzard (wc3) and Sins of a solar empire, none of them MMOs or FPS.
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I don't know how it is in Sweden, but here in Canada, WC3 + TFT costs $39.99
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On October 04 2008 08:43 Ace wrote:
Not only that, but it's like posters here feel like they are in the right for pirating things and that the Software Industry should cater to THEM and find a better way not to get their stuff stolen.
@klackon: what does anything you typed have to do with legitimizing you for stealing?
Firstly, like someone above mentioned it is not stealing by the letter of the law.
Secondly, I described why I cannot think it is morally wrong. And then I expressed the rather pragmatic view that either the people making money of these things adapt to the fact that people can share freely or they loose their jobs.
An industry cannot survive if the very foundation of it's existance is the fact that people are not allowed to share.
edit: @ above I think it is slightly less here, my point was that blizzard made a lot of money on wc3, in an age where pirating already had started to become rampant, only because it was a good game.
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9070 Posts
I think the devs should search a way to make every game playable in internet, this will just force the users to buy the original copy. Basically you can make an online multiplayer mode for all kind of genres of games.
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On October 04 2008 08:53 KlaCkoN wrote:
An industry cannot survive if the very foundation of it's existance is the fact that people are not allowed to share.
All you can eat buffet style restaurants do fairly well. Granted, it's only a subset of an industry, but there is precedent to the not-sharing business model.
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Haha good point Maybe it does work then.
I still don't really think so though.
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I have bought like 5 cd's of starcraft because either i have broken the cd, or have lost the cd-key, donwloading sc was juts too troublesome for me =/.
On a more related topic, i pirate games for more like a demo purpose. Really, I say it in the wholest sense, if I don't like it, I don't play it again. If I like it, I actually go and buy it (Total war series), so in MY case, i continue to pirate games since i don't wanna gamble on paying like 70 dollars on a crappy game.
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I look forward to watching this movie when I have the spare time just to see what kind of arguments they make. I think it's kind of cheesy to title it "steal this movie" when they offer it for free and the budget is $3,000. Maybe if they spent $300,000,000 on the movie, they wouldn't be so happy about you not paying to view it >.<
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is awesome32274 Posts
On October 04 2008 08:25 disciple wrote:
film industry wont disappear because of the piracy, cause they are making money in the theaters the weeks after the movie is in the public scene and the piracy doesnt have the time to kickin. As you know it takes a while for a movie to appear in the torrent with descent quality, so the money lost due too bad dvd sells are just pain in the ass. the music suffers the most. the guys from metallica dont give a fuck about piracy and the fact that their album was to download everywhere a week before it was even in the stores, cause the band is pretty much on tour for so years and the bastards are making money like shit from their concerts. But for the unknown artists the piracy is quite deadly
On the contrary, internet and free download have given lots of unknown artists a way to show their work that otherwise would have gone trough the filter or music companies.
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Before it was possible to record music onto an album there were still musicians. The purpose of the recording and distributing music is not to make money for the record companies or the artist its purpose is to distribute music. The reason the laws are the way they are and it costs so much is because earlier the only way to distribute music was to have a strong central organization such as a radio station or a record company. Plus production and transportation also costs. Today you dont need a big central organization to distribute music. You don't need to pay anything for production and transportation of physical records. There is no cost in copying a file other than the cost of electricity and computer power. Artists can get along fine without record companies just like they did before they existed.
The diversity and the access is much better today than it was before the internet. Since people can listen to any amount of music for free they aren't limited to experiencing what they have heard at their friends house or on the radio. You don't need to pay big bucks to explore new kinds of music and diversify your music taste. Many artists thrive from file sharing releasing many if not all songs online and thereby getting more fans who buy their merchandise and pay to come to their concerts which is anyway where artist earn most of their money today.
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Other than music... Look at anime. How popular do you think anime and manga and japanese culture in general would be in the west today if it wasn't for piracy? It's a big industry in the west and thats mosly thanks to the people who on their own have subbed and released all the shows online. How popular would starcraft be today outside of korea if we couldnt download VODs or view games on youtube? Maybe the companies in korea aren't earning that much money from the foreign scene right now but they sure have a prepared market which has been shown these last 1-2 years with all the attention they have given us.
People don't stop buying bottles water just because they can get it for free at home. Look at applications like photoshop. No sane private person would buy a license for photoshop but the developers of photoshop still earn lots of money from people downloading it. Since basically everyone who uses computers and are into art know how to use the program, once they get a job they will ask their boss for a license. Private use of professional programs are good for everyone.
I don't think it should be legal to make money of of other peoples work but I think that the laws for copyright need to be changed to adapt to the world we live in today.
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On October 04 2008 08:37 Ace wrote:
"the industry should just adapt"
and how are they going to do that? Console games can't, musicians can't, and most videogames that are not MMOs or FPS can't.
Pay attention. Entertainment industries that are victims of piracy are supposed to throw in the towel and explore opportunities for clean and renewable energy. The central United States is a hot bed for unharvested wind energy that could help us break our dependency on foreign oil.
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just because there are good effects to it does not make it RIGHT. I know there are good side effects to piracy, but putting hate towards record companies isn't the heart of the issue. Not all musicians can make a living off of letting their music out for free, so that argument is bs. You guys are using a few example, which while they are great, does not address the fact that some people have to make a living off of this stuff and it's wrong.
Software companies don't all just say "Ok, they are going to pirate our stuff anyway, so let's just upload it to bittorent". Free software in itself is another neverending topic of crazy stuff (Open Source development).
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On October 04 2008 09:56 IntoTheWow wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2008 08:25 disciple wrote:
film industry wont disappear because of the piracy, cause they are making money in the theaters the weeks after the movie is in the public scene and the piracy doesnt have the time to kickin. As you know it takes a while for a movie to appear in the torrent with descent quality, so the money lost due too bad dvd sells are just pain in the ass. the music suffers the most. the guys from metallica dont give a fuck about piracy and the fact that their album was to download everywhere a week before it was even in the stores, cause the band is pretty much on tour for so years and the bastards are making money like shit from their concerts. But for the unknown artists the piracy is quite deadly On the contrary, internet and free download have given lots of unknown artists a way to show their work that otherwise would have gone trough the filter or music companies.
I think he meant "unknown" as in "signed, but not very popular." But, his point is still wrong. Artists that aren't very popular generally make absolutely nothing from record sales, as their contracts require that money to be used to pay for things like studios and producers they used to make the record in the first place. So unless an artist sells a lot of copies, they're not going to see a dime of that anyway.
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i think the internets going to last a long time and as long as there are universities there will always be a pirate.
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I haven't read the thread but i just want to give it my 2 c.
Personally i think a big part of the piracy problem has to do with the culture of today's society. I know people in Asia and some part of the Western world wouldn't give a second thought for downloading stuff without paying. However, Piracy in Japan is almost non-existent because a combination of their culture of no doing anything to harm others and a strict policy and DRM protected materials (be they porn, music blah blah).
As a consumer, i will go after what ever is cheapest and most convenient for me to shop. A lot of people who pirate belong to my generation who should be around about 20ish in age and will own credit card etc. I still don't understand why it is so difficult to get stuff from the internet legally. The only option is iTune which doesn't work for my linux box.
It doesn't make sense for the consumer to pay twice as much as some one else just because he happens to live in a different country. I have to pay double the price for a steam ID compare to some one in the US. I have to pay more for legal mp3 tunes and i don't get the same selection as people in US.
I mean wtf? i understand market segmentation and all that BS economic crap. But we live in the I.T age where resources are conveniently available so what's the point of having this old business model of dividing consumers?
I would pay for my music, porn, games. I'm not rich but i will pay for them but i expect they to be
1. Good quality, at least the same quality as the CDs sold.
2. Be accessible. So i can download stuff no matter where i am.
3. Have a good framework which i can continue shopping.
I'm sorry, Even with the popularity of internet, i'm still not getting these so i will continue pirate until the day when production companies figure out how to make shopping easy for me.
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On October 04 2008 05:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:
Because piracy directly affects sales numbers negatively (every copy pirated is a copy not sold)
I agree, but I definitely think it's not 1:1. Not everyone who goes out and pirates a copy would buy it in real life.
An interesting thought - Starcraft has some of the poorest copyright protection out there. But everyone says they've bought 2, 3 copies? For whatever reason, one can't pirate Starcraft. I think there's a lesson to be learned there by the gaming companies about piracy.
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Physician
United States4146 Posts
..patenting, copyright etc.. are antiquated and counter productive concepts that are in dire need of revision, if not extinction. The very term "intellectual property" is an oxymoron. It is an artificial construction that today hinders the evolution of ideas and progress far more than any of its proposed benefits.
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On October 04 2008 11:49 thunk wrote:
An interesting thought - Starcraft has some of the poorest copyright protection out there. But everyone says they've bought 2, 3 copies? For whatever reason, one can't pirate Starcraft. I think there's a lesson to be learned there by the gaming companies about piracy.
Have people seriously bought multiple copies of the same game? Talk about redundancy. IMO a users license to use a piece of software shouldn't be tied to the physical media (ie. the cd). If I accidently snap a game cd I don't see why I shouldn't be able to download an ISO and burn a new one.
Also whoever said people don't pirate starcraft? Just because it is uncommon on a site like TL.net doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I know plenty of people who in recent times have pirated sc.
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On October 04 2008 11:49 thunk wrote:
An interesting thought - Starcraft has some of the poorest copyright protection out there. But everyone says they've bought 2, 3 copies? For whatever reason, one can't pirate Starcraft. I think there's a lesson to be learned there by the gaming companies about piracy.
SC requires a valid cdkey to play on bnet, which is basically 90% of the content of the game. The only better protection is in MMOs, which you can't play at all without access to official servers. It's not copyright protection since you can still copy the cd easily, but it makes copyright protection unnecessary, which is far better.
Of course there's uonfficial servers for both SC and WoW, but they're essentially inferior due to smaller player bases and lack of support. PGT/ICCup/etc are an exception, but they probably don't cause a significant loss of sales since they only cater to a very small portion of the market, mostly folks who own the game anyway.
Mainly (or purely) online gameplay and centralized servers aren't really an option for most games though. It's ideal for MMOs and good for RTS (where servers are essentially a matchmaking service) and online FPS (where WON/Steam/etc have to validate your cdkey) but games that are mainly single player are screwed.
On October 04 2008 12:38 Ludrik wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2008 11:49 thunk wrote:
An interesting thought - Starcraft has some of the poorest copyright protection out there. But everyone says they've bought 2, 3 copies? For whatever reason, one can't pirate Starcraft. I think there's a lesson to be learned there by the gaming companies about piracy. Have people seriously bought multiple copies of the same game? Talk about redundancy. IMO a users license to use a piece of software shouldn't be tied to the physical media (ie. the cd). If I accidently snap a game cd I don't see why I shouldn't be able to download an ISO and burn a new one. Also whoever said people don't pirate starcraft? Just because it is uncommon on a site like TL.net doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I know plenty of people who in recent times have pirated sc.
CDs break, get scratched, lost, etc. You can d/l the ISO from blizz now though, just need a valid cdkey.
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That's the thing. Sometimes it is just so god damn convenient to download than getting a legal copy.
I had to search for 14 days in China trying to find a legal Starcraft then to discover that there is no cd key -_-.
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Does nobody else notice the irony?
Edit: nvm, I guess dl is free for that documentary
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HonestTea
5007 Posts
I hear you.
I really do.
I understand that the basic concepts behind copyright and intellectual property and ownership are all changing.
Musicians used to bitch about the phonograph. "Who will come to our concerts now?" they asked. Then they bitched about the cassette tape. Then the CD. And now, mp3s.
Each time a new format has been developed, the industry managed to harness a new business model and grow. Somehow creative types will find a way to use the new technology to their benefit, to reach more people and sustain a good living doing so in the meantime.
However, I think people are being a little too cavalier with their attitudes towards piracy.
I work in the Korean film industry. Currently, only about 30% of filmmaking staff and crew are employed. This is because there are few movies in production. This is partially because it's not easy for a film to make money these days, so investors are reluctant to spend their money. This is partially because people are pirating.
Where it really hurts most is the anciliaries (after-theater money makers). See, movie stuidios make more money off of the DVD releases and broadcasting rights to the movies than the initial theater release. Piracy really affects DVD rentals and sales, which takes a chunk out of possible income for any movie.
I won't claim to know what it's like for the music or game industry, but when I look around and see friends and colleagues out of work, it does make me think about downloading another movie.
I believe like most others that eventually the industry will have to find an answer and adapt or go extinct. That is the way the world will go.
But I don't like it when people say they "have a right" to pirate, or that there is "nothing wrong" or "nothing harmful" with pirating.
Because it's not true. The current business model must change, but in the meantime, PIRACY HARMS PEOPLE.
It's difficult for me to fathom, becuase equal amounts of time, money, and human lives are spent making a movie as they are to make a car. More time and money and human lives were spent making that album than the chicken burrito + nachos and guacamole that you had for dinner. Yet people don't claim that it's ok to "just have" the Mexican food. People will drop 10 bucks for dinner but not 10 bucks for some culture?
Ok, I would too, because money is precious.
But don't try to justify it as anything else. Piracy is harmful and in a loose way, it is stealing.
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On October 04 2008 06:17 VIB wrote:
Excalibur_Z, your post could be resumed to "copyright benefits me, I make money off it so does my colleagues. Piracy reduces our income, therefore pirating is a bad thing.". Yea it's bad, for you. Not for myself nor for 99% of the population.
I don't really understand the point. Are you in support of dining and dashing because not paying for food that the restaurant had to spend labour and money making will help 99% of us that want to eat food, and hurt the 1% that make food for us? That's essentially what I see out of this argument
I'm not gonna go into this, as I don't have the energy to argue over this issue, but if you can explain your point, that would be great
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It's more than just that, though, and it's far from "making a few rich people richer." Piracy destroys incentive to create new material. If you're going to put hundreds of hours into creating something (or even just a few), you want to get paid. If everyone comes along and just takes your product from you (whatever it may be), you're less likely to continue production of said product, or create new material for fear that the same thing may happen again. Then other people see what happened to you, and figure that if it happened there, it'll probably happen to them. Eventually, it'll spiral out of control and nothing would be created anymore.
Your views on this are unbelievably simplistic and naive. You act as if companies don't exist to create a profit. Yes, buying the product makes some people richer, but it also creates incentive for other people to make somewhat similar products.
And saying to Excal that he somehow proves your point is just idiotic. There are probably several hundred people that work for that company, and if the company ceases to profit, they'll lose their jobs. If it were JUST that one company then it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal, because it'd just be ONE company folding. But it's not just one company, it's ALL of them that are getting ripped off.
On October 04 2008 08:53 KlaCkoN wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2008 08:43 Ace wrote:
Not only that, but it's like posters here feel like they are in the right for pirating things and that the Software Industry should cater to THEM and find a better way not to get their stuff stolen.
@klackon: what does anything you typed have to do with legitimizing you for stealing? Firstly, like someone above mentioned it is not stealing by the letter of the law. Secondly, I described why I cannot think it is morally wrong. And then I expressed the rather pragmatic view that either the people making money of these things adapt to the fact that people can share freely or they loose their jobs. An industry cannot survive if the very foundation of it's existance is the fact that people are not allowed to share. edit: @ above I think it is slightly less here, my point was that blizzard made a lot of money on wc3, in an age where pirating already had started to become rampant, only because it was a good game.
That is so stupid. The industry needs money to survive. If they don't get paid, they're going to stop making it. And then what the fuck are you going to do? Nothing, because nothing will be made anymore. If people don't get paid, they won't make shit; they won't work.
On October 04 2008 11:56 Physician wrote:
..patenting, copyright etc.. are antiquated and counter productive concepts that are in dire need of revision, if not extinction. The very term "intellectual property" is an oxymoron. It is an artificial construction that today hinders the evolution of ideas and progress far more than any of its proposed benefits.
No, that's just dumb. What it does is it provides protection for the creation of NEW ideas. We can't just take the same old ideas and keep recycling them and still progress. Maybe the length of the copyright/patent should be changed, maybe it needs to be changed, but it does not need to be thrown away.
Take your own field, for instance. If there weren't patents, we would NEVER see new medicines. Why? Because not a single drug company actually exists to help people; they exist to make a profit. If just anyone could come along and steal their idea after they put the millions, sometimes billions, of dollars into research and development of their drug, then no one would research and develop anything anymore. They'd all be waiting for someone else to do it so they could take all their hard work and profit off of it without having to work for it.
Patents and copyrights are absolutely vital to progression.
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HonestTea + others, I'm aware piracy harms a few people, which I specifically talk about in my first post. But that is the ONLY and single valid anti-piracy argument. I agree it's a valid argument, as I said in my first post, I won't argue against this. This is one CONS of piracy indeed. Now shall we measure the CONS against the PROS?
Pro piracy / Anti Intellectual Property (IP) arguments:
- Freedom, this one should be obvious.
- IP hurts creativity in many different ways. Forbids you to create from/further develop existing content.
- Consequently from the above, IP degrade final product quality.
- Consequently again IP hurts the final consumers!! Which is the ~99% of the population.
- IP hurts the final consumers again, but also economically - it's expensive.
- Hurts costumers one more time when it comes to support longevity. Your X broke, but the company who produces and has the copyright over X bankrupt. Now similar companies cannot provide you support because their X is different due to copyrights.
- IP largely contributes to economical imbalance absurds, how much does Britney Spears make again?
- Social imbalances which derivates from economical imbalance
- IP is the main support of a whole industry branch that is irrelevant/has no place in modern technology: The record industry. (Read Brainx's post in this thread)
- Bad for economy, IP admittedly equals monopoly which is an anti-competitive behavior and against free market
- IP is doomed to extinction, the chairman of the MPAA!!! admits they're aware of this on the movie! (Watch it if you haven't) Might take 50 or 100 years, but it's inevitable no matter how much you disagree with it.
Anti piracy / Pro intellectual property arguments argument
- Piracy hurts that very few amount of the population who: 1) directly benefits economically from copyrights and 2) failed to adapt unlike many others.
- ....hmm, can't think of anything else :S
So yes. Piracy does harms some few people, I give you that. But intellectual property harms many more people and much more dramatically. Look at the above and now you tell me. What is right? What is immoral?
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On October 04 2008 13:52 HonestTea wrote:
I hear you.
I really do.
I understand that the basic concepts behind copyright and intellectual property and ownership are all changing.
Musicians used to bitch about the phonograph. "Who will come to our concerts now?" they asked. Then they bitched about the cassette tape. Then the CD. And now, mp3s.
Each time a new format has been developed, the industry managed to harness a new business model and grow. Somehow creative types will find a way to use the new technology to their benefit, to reach more people and sustain a good living doing so in the meantime.
However, I think people are being a little too cavalier with their attitudes towards piracy.
I work in the Korean film industry. Currently, only about 30% of filmmaking staff and crew are employed. This is because there are few movies in production. This is partially because it's not easy for a film to make money these days, so investors are reluctant to spend their money. This is partially because people are pirating.
Where it really hurts most is the anciliaries (after-theater money makers). See, movie stuidios make more money off of the DVD releases and broadcasting rights to the movies than the initial theater release. Piracy really affects DVD rentals and sales, which takes a chunk out of possible income for any movie.
I won't claim to know what it's like for the music or game industry, but when I look around and see friends and colleagues out of work, it does make me think about downloading another movie.
I believe like most others that eventually the industry will have to find an answer and adapt or go extinct. That is the way the world will go.
But I don't like it when people say they "have a right" to pirate, or that there is "nothing wrong" or "nothing harmful" with pirating.
Because it's not true. The current business model must change, but in the meantime, PIRACY HARMS PEOPLE.
It's difficult for me to fathom, becuase equal amounts of time, money, and human lives are spent making a movie as they are to make a car. More time and money and human lives were spent making that album than the chicken burrito + nachos and guacamole that you had for dinner. Yet people don't claim that it's ok to "just have" the Mexican food. People will drop 10 bucks for dinner but not 10 bucks for some culture?
Ok, I would too, because money is precious.
But don't try to justify it as anything else. Piracy is harmful and in a loose way, it is stealing.
QFT
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Im called BrainX now ?
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to those who think piracy isnt against the law (for some reason), it is, but people will do it anyways. underage drinking is illegal, jay-walking is illegal, but people do it anyways. not saying that these are necessarily equal in severity, but just record's sake.
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On October 04 2008 05:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:
(every copy pirated is a copy not sold)
this is just not true, most people download a shitload of games that they would never ever buy from a store.
personaly me and my dad download our asses off, movies, games, music and so on BUT if we really think something is GOOD we always get it for real.
imho the whole copying thing is mostly hurting the companies that produce mediocrity in first place.
plz dont mind my spellings 
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On October 04 2008 05:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:every copy pirated is a copy not sold
That is not true. I can take a free copy, but it doesn't mean that I would have ever bought it.
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On October 04 2008 16:18 VIB wrote:HonestTea + others, I'm aware piracy harms a few people, which I specifically talk about in my first post. But that is the ONLY and single valid anti-piracy argument. I agree it's a valid argument, as I said in my first post, I won't argue against this. This is one CONS of piracy indeed. Now shall we measure the CONS against the PROS? Pro piracy / Anti Intellectual Property (IP) arguments:- Freedom, this one should be obvious. - IP hurts creativity in many different ways. Forbids you to create from/further develop existing content.- Consequently from the above, IP degrade final product quality. - Consequently again IP hurts the final consumers!! Which is the ~99% of the population. - IP hurts the final consumers again, but also economically - it's expensive. - Hurts costumers one more time when it comes to support longevity. Your X broke, but the company who produces and has the copyright over X bankrupt. Now similar companies cannot provide you support because their X is different due to copyrights. - IP largely contributes to economical imbalance absurds, how much does Britney Spears make again? - Social imbalances which derivates from economical imbalance - IP is the main support of a whole industry branch that is irrelevant/has no place in modern technology: The record industry. ( Read Brainx's post in this thread) - Bad for economy, IP admittedly equals monopoly which is an anti-competitive behavior and against free market - IP is doomed to extinction, the chairman of the MPAA!!! admits they're aware of this on the movie! (Watch it if you haven't) Might take 50 or 100 years, but it's inevitable no matter how much you disagree with it. Anti piracy / Pro intellectual property arguments argument- Piracy hurts that very few amount of the population who: 1) directly benefits economically from copyrights and 2) failed to adapt unlike many others. - ....hmm, can't think of anything else :S So yes. Piracy does harms some few people, I give you that. But intellectual property harms many more people and much more dramatically. Look at the above and now you tell me. What is right? What is immoral?
Intellectual Property harms you? You walk into an electronics store, you go to a DVD aisle, you see movies that people have invested many millions of dollars into and are now offering to sell to you, and then what? They give you HIV? Bruce Willis pops out of a DVD case of Die Hard and throws you out the window of a skyscraper? Seriously, do you have any idea what you are talking about?
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HonestTea
5007 Posts
Put on yer hazmat suits, boys, 'cause we about to wade through some HORSESHIT.
On October 04 2008 16:18 VIB wrote:
HonestTea + others, I'm aware piracy harms a few people, which I specifically talk about in my first post. But that is the ONLY and single valid anti-piracy argument. I agree it's a valid argument, as I said in my first post, I won't argue against this. This is one CONS of piracy indeed. Now shall we measure the CONS against the PROS?
Wait, before we measure the CONS against the PROS, can we stop here for a sec?
Hi, I'm one of those people who are DIRECTLY HARMED by piracy. Piracy makes my investors reluctant to pay me, because some people who would have bought whatever I make are now finding ways to get it for free. With out funds to pay for my rent and food, I am unable to create. But no matter. The case of me and many of my brothers and sisters is merely the ONLY and single (?) valid anti-piracy argument. This is, indeed from my point of view, one of the CONS.
So when you say we measure the CONS against the PROS, I shall take the liberty of translating this for you.
"Now shall we measure the CONS against the PROS?"
"Now shall we measure the fact that HonestTea cannot get paid to focus on his creative endeavors, and instead must find other ways to pay for rent and bread, which take away available time and effort to create, agsint the PROS?"
Okay, lets!
Pro piracy / Anti Intellectual Property (IP) arguments:
- Freedom, this one should be obvious.
Err, actually, it's not obvious. I'm not sure what you mean by freedom. Freedom to obtain intellectual property? You mean the freedom to get whatever you want? Is this sorta like the freedom to take a blind woman's purse whenever you want? It's actually not obvious to me.
You wish to argue that IP hurts the qualityof creative output. You say "many different ways" but fail to elaborate. Because I'm so kind, I'll make your argument for you. What you want to say is that because Evil Mega Record Labels make an investment into their musicians, an investment that is protected by copyright and IP laws, thus Evil Mega Record Labels demand that the output of the poor creative types that they are exploiting must conform in to some sort of sell-able final product.
tl;dr - copyrights and IP forces musicians to "sell out."
Yeah, it's too bad that The Ramones sold out. Too bad Prince sold out. Too bad Bob Dylan sold out. Too bad James Brown sold out. Too bad Bob Marley sold out. Too bad Nirvana sold out. Too Bad Wu Tang sold out. Baby, we could dance this dance forever.
But hey, you know who never sold out? The Beatles. I mean The Beatles did have the production money to record their own album... wait, they didn't. Well at least it's not like major record labels paid the costs and funds for The Beatles to be promoted all over America so that they could reach millions of new listeners.... oh wait. Well, at least the major record labels didn't arrange for The Beatles to make their seminal appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show... wait, no, they did that. Well at least The Beatles never ended up selling out their music to car ads and shit like that. Why? Because they were living comfortably off their copyright-protected record sales, that's why.
Do you think Bach and Beethoven wrote for free? Hell no. They were sponsored by patrons - rich, white, inbred dudes who paid for the rent and for the sausages so that the musicians could focus on music.
Do you know who sponsors the Great Musicians of today? YOU. That's right. YOU are now the patrons of mondern music, because YOU can choose who is worth sponsoring, with the money you choose to spend on music. So I could even argue that IP and copyright has lead to the democratization of creative patronage. (I won't, but I could. It's like American Idol except you vote with your money.)
IP hurts the final consumers again, but also economically - it's expensive.
IP hurts the final consumer by giving them an option by which to spend their disposable income. In other words, IP "hurts" you economically by presenting a potential way to exchange your cash for some goods - IN THE EXACT SAME MANNER you exchange some cash for a car, or for a sandwich. ARE YOU SAYING THAT SANDWICHES HURT YOU ECONOMICALLY?
Besides, the LACK of IP hurts me much more because I CAN'T GET A JOB when my creative output is not compensated. Do you know what it's like to not have a job?
- Hurts costumers one more time when it comes to support longevity. Your X broke, but the company who produces and has the copyright over X bankrupt. Now similar companies cannot provide you support because their X is different due to copyrights.
This one really, really blew my mind. Why don't you just tell me that the sky is yellow and get over it.
WHO is going to archive all the creative property if nobody gets to own it? You know who has the best kept archives in the movie industry? The Major Hollywood Studios. Universal, MGM, Disney - they keep great archives, so when it comes time to make that wonderful Audrey Hepburn box set DVD, they can restore old film and put it on sale so I can enjoy otherwise difficult-to-get movies starring The Most Beautiful Film Star Ever.
They take such good care of it because they own it!
Copyright SUPPORTS longevity!
I will now put this into retardese for you:
Your X broke, but there never was any company who produced or had copyright over X. So no one had any reason to spend the time and money to properly archive and preserve X. So you can't ever watch it again and it is lost to all of humanity. Sad face.
- IP largely contributes to economical imbalance absurds, how much does Britney Spears make again?
- Social imbalances which derivates from economical imbalance
Wait, are you saying copyright laws contribute to social imbalances?
ashdl;fahk;wlieha;lwskdfhaw;oilths;ldikfajw;elktawstaekwlae;j;lsiddahgw
*two hours later*
Sorry, I passed out on my keyboard.
Anyways, Britney Spears is rich, and you're not. Get over it. And yes, I have the record industry to blame for Britney Spears, but you know who else I have to blame? EVERYBODY WHO BOUGHT HER SHIT.
This is what the record industry does:
- finds talent
- for better or for worse, "develops" the talent.
- produces talent's creative output
- advertises that output so that the public knows about it and gets a chance to hear it.
- recieves a commision for its efforts = profit.
If you have the time and money to do all that by yourself, go ahead. Knock yourself out. Let's see how many new bands you discover within a week. Let's see how many new bands outside of your country you discover.
"But HonestTea," you say "with the INTERNET, I can see any new band anywhere! WOW!" This is true. But you know what the problem with the Internet is? QUANTITY OVERFLOW. So because of the magical wonders of the internet you come back and say "Hey HonestTea I found myself 5,000 new bands, in 140 different countries over the past week!"
To which I say: Well which of them are good? Which of them make music I like to listen to? Hmm That's a lot of bands and a lot of songs. I wish I had the time to hear them all, but I don't. Hmm maybe I'll pay someone, someone who has a lot of experience with music, to listen to them all and take away the shitty bands, and make some suggestions for the new bands I should check out.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
Without record labels I would have never been introduced to the following modern day musicans: Kanye, Slum Village, or Blue Scholar, or Snow Patrol, or The Go! Team, or Angelique Kidjo, or The White Stripes... and those are all musicians that came to notice AFTER the dawn of the internet age. Meanwhile, the internet has introduced me to Tay Zonday and Rick Astley. I'll stick with the labels thankyouverymuch.
- Bad for economy, IP admittedly equals monopoly which is an anti-competitive behavior and against free market
Please study the phrases "economy" "monopoly" "anti-competitive" and "free market" before you ever string them together in a sentance like this again. Before you even use those words again. Like, I mean, really study that shit. Or you can just study the word "bad." But I think you grasp the concept of "bad." I think.
- IP is doomed to extinction, the chairman of the MPAA!!! admits they're aware of this on the movie! (Watch it if you haven't) Might take 50 or 100 years, but it's inevitable no matter how much you disagree with it.
Yay! After 3000 words, I agree with you once!
Anti piracy / Pro intellectual property arguments argument
- Piracy hurts that very few amount of the population who: 1) directly benefits economically from copyrights and 2) failed to adapt unlike many others.
- ....hmm, can't think of anything else :S
Piracy hurts that very few amount of the population who: 1) CREATE THE STUFF FOR THE REST OF THE POPULATION and 2) failed to adapt unlike many others.
... hmm, so I guess this doesn't affect the rest of the population at all. :S
So yes. Piracy does harms some few people, I give you that. But intellectual property harms many more people and much more dramatically. Look at the above and now you tell me. What is right? What is immoral?
Listen. Read carefully. Try to forget about your hurt feelings up to now, because I am about to teach you something very basic and important.
I'm even squinting. That's how serious I am.
Now:
When you fail to protect those who produce goods, then they will stop producing them goods.
If you fail to protect sandwich guy, if everyone can just come up to sandwich store and grabbed any thing they want, any time they want, then sandwich guy will stop making sandwiches. And no more classic Italian subs for you.
Maybe he is not just a simple sandwich guy. Maybe he is an artist. Maybe he will continue to make sandwiches in his free time, because his pursuit of The Perfect Sandwich will go on, it is is his holy mission. Good. Except sandwich guy can only make sandwichs in the down time when he's not farming sheep. Because people pay him money for sheep. Money that he uses to pay for his clothes, his house, his food, and his kids and his family. Now, only with the leftover money after paying for all that can he find the funds to make sandwiches. Only with the leftover time from sheep farming can he find the time to make sandwiches. Only with the leftover energy after a whole day of doing a job he doesn't enjoy, can he find the strenght and creativity to make sandwiches.
So instead of making many imaginative super-sandwiches, every day, with premium ham and cheese, our hero is only making one dull soso-sandwich in a week, with the low-quality ham and soggy, moldy bread.
WHO SUFFERS? BOTH SANDWICH MAN AND SANDWICH FAN.
What is right? What is immoral? Answer: Who gives a shit? (although you should also study "right" and "immoral" while you're at it)
What I care about is: What works? What makes it so that both Sandwich Man and Sandwich Fan are happy?
Answer: PAYING THE SANDWICH MAN TO MAKE SANDWICHES
I will concede only one point: In the modern day, Copyright and Intellectual Property laws are not the best way to pay the sandwich man for making sandwiches. Clearly, we need a business model that can work in our current environment. If you are going to continue to champion anti-copyright, do yourself a favor and at least go from that angle. But in no way can we not pay the sandwich man. PAY THE SANDWICH MAN!
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(every copy pirated is a copy not sold)
This is a bad argument. I believe many people would not even care about a certain product if they had to buy it. By copying it, the product will reach more people. If it is good, they will most likelly tell their friends about it eventually leading to more people buying it.
Edit: I obviously wasnt the first to react on that statement...
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HonestTea
5007 Posts
If there were a magical cloning device that could clone sandwiches, and people would clone sandwiches and distribute them free in the streets, then you are NOT PAYING THE SANDWICH MAN TO MAKE SANDWICHES
piracy = not paying the sandwich man
at least, this is true in the year 2008. And it must change. It has to change. But for now, please pay the sandwich man?
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On October 04 2008 23:11 HonestTea wrote:
If there were a magical cloning device that could clone sandwiches, and people would clone sandwiches and distribute them free in the streets, then you are NOT PAYING THE SANDWICH MAN TO MAKE SANDWICHES
piracy = not paying the sandwich man
at least, this is true in the year 2008. And it must change. It has to change. But for now, please pay the sandwich man?
Absolutelly. As far as im able too.
VIB said:
Like I said in my first post, both Excalibur and Merz are using the only pro-copyright argument I know that exists: it makes money for a few people (very very few people).
Well, this is also unfortunatelly insanelly stupid. If you look at it, it is also only a few people who is actually making the stuff. What you are saying is basically that you should have right to tell these people to make stuff without you paying for it. I doubt you would go and create a videogame or a record for someone else without getting payed for it. Or mabye you would. One time. Before you realized the amount of work you put on it without even getting so much as a thanks.
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I dont have a TV since 3 years. I didnt buy games except for BW and WoW in like 10 years. Still I dl movies from time to time cus my g/f likes watching movies with me. Would I buy or rent these movies for money? Hell no. I bought a couple of movies on DVD (like 5), all which I had seen pirated before and I really liked and wanted to own them for good. None of them comes out of Hollywood, my favourite movie is Mar Adentro ("The Sea inside") by Alejandro Amenabar (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369702/).
Simply put, if it wasnt for piracy, I wouldnt consume a fraction of the bullcrap the film or gaming industry sells some idiots for a load of money. Zohan topping cinema charts? Oh yeah, it really was teh funn!!1!1 Or like somebody said, Spore. That game was just ridiculously bad for the hype created (like 99% of all hyped games i pirate and play for 2 days). If I had to spent money for that shit, I simply wouldnt. I sincerely hope my behaviour supports the dying of mediocre to bullshit gaming companies and Hollywood and I have no issue with that. In fact I believe it would make the world a better place (although I know there are too many idiots who will keep these industries alive).
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also honesttea, how many of these movies u make or help create u would like urself and pay money for it? how many do u really think add something of value to this world or for the people who watch them? I could go as far and say that you, the film industry, is hurting people by giving them shallow entertainment, dulling their intellect. Maybe they would read a book or two (most people who read dont pirate books but rent them at a library or buy them) if it wasn't for all the crappy TV-Series and Dramas or Action movies and whatnot that so many people have gotten addicted to over the years.
Of cus, I take it all back if you work for an independent film company which really does good movies with a meaning to it. Are there any available in english or even german which u think are good u helped producing? I would really give it a try and judge for myself. If I think its worth it, I assure you I will go and buy it afterwards.
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Seriously damenmofa, does it matter wether you steal from the big or small company? It is still the same, stealing. Whatever your opinion on the production value, people spend time and money towards producing that so it doesn't give you any right to just steal it (yes, piracy is stealing imo).
Compare it to cars. Let's say person A thinks all Volvo cars are crap. In fact, every car made a big company is crap. The only decent cars are the ones made by Spyker, a small indepent company. Does that give him the right to steal any car found on the street, just because he thinks they are crap?
Piracy is stealing. You are not paying for a product you should pay for. Just because it is fast, easy and through the anonymity of the internet doesn't make it any diffirent.
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On October 05 2008 01:00 Lenwe wrote:
Seriously damenmofa, does it matter wether you steal from the big or small company? It is still the same, stealing. Whatever your opinion on the production value, people spend time and money towards producing that so it doesn't give you any right to just steal it (yes, piracy is stealing imo).
Compare it to cars. Let's say person A thinks all Volvo cars are crap. In fact, every car made a big company is crap. The only decent cars are the ones made by Spyker, a small indepent company. Does that give him the right to steal any car found on the street, just because he thinks they are crap?
Piracy is stealing. You are not paying for a product you should pay for. Just because it is fast, easy and through the anonymity of the internet doesn't make it any diffirent.
I just wouldnt buy the product man. If it wasnt for piracy I would NEVER consider to even buy the product. At least these companies have a chance to make money off me by making a good product which I notice through things like user reviews on certain pages or prizes from critics. If I couldnt pirate it and had to buy smth I wouldnt know if it lives up to my expectations, I wouldnt buy it. So thats a grand total of 0$ filming or gaming industry would ever make off me.
Also a comparison to cars is bs. Cars are no intellectual work which some people like or not. Its rock solid quality in objectively measurable tests (like crash tests and endurance tests and shit). U can like or dislike the design of the car, but the overall quality is very much objectively measurable. Also your argument backfires hard cus actually yes, you can test drive any car u think about buying _for free_ just like that. Its essentially what I do with pirating. Try before you buy.
With films, I, for myself, made the discovery I dont like 99% of the stuff the big industry sells or the films that top the cinema charts. On the other hand, films u never heard of with small budgets sometimes are far better in my opinion because they have to make up the lack of famous actors and special effects and stuff with actual content.
"The Sea Inside", my favorite movie, is by no means a small independent film. The director was already well known and even produced a Hollywood film already (Vanilla Sky - bad copy of the originally great film "Open your eyes") at the time he made "The Sea inside". He is just good at making movies and therefore I support him by buying some of his products. Unfortunately this does not hold true for me for the vast majority of other people in the industry.
I even give Hollywood Movies chance after chance if I hear about something that is supposed to be good, but nothing truly great comes to my mind from the last 10 years except for some very rare films like "Dark City", which is older than that. Another good film was "Gomorra", a film about south-italian mafia. Although I normally dont like action films this film was actually good to me and I will buy it on DVD because if you have some knowledge about the theme, you will find it a shockingly realistic portrait of some of the worst every-day living conditions in a modern "first world" country.
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Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you shouldn't have to pay for the product. If you don't like Hollywood movies then that's allright. Don't go to the movie theater to see them or don't get the DVD. However, if you download them then you are stealing them and it doesn't matter wether you like them or not. Buy the DVD, watch it and if you don't like it go back to the store and trade it for a diffirent movie.
And it's great that the indepent movie studio sold one more copy to you after you stole their movie from some torrent site. Too bad your indepent movie company has a hard time selling more copy's cause everyone else that downloaded that torrent isn't going to the store. Yes, there's is always the risk that you go to a movie theather and don't like the movie, or that you buy a game and don't like it. That doesn't give you the right to steal them.
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On October 05 2008 01:55 Lenwe wrote:
Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you shouldn't have to pay for the product. If you don't like Hollywood movies then that's allright. Don't go to the movie theater to see them or don't get the DVD. However, if you download them then you are stealing them and it doesn't matter wether you like them or not. Buy the DVD, watch it and if you don't like it go back to the store and trade it for a diffirent movie.
And it's great that the indepent movie studio sold one more copy to you after you stole their movie from some torrent site. Too bad your indepent movie company has a hard time selling more copy's cause everyone else that downloaded that torrent isn't going to the store. Yes, there's is always the risk that you go to a movie theather and don't like the movie, or that you buy a game and don't like it. That doesn't give you the right to steal them.
Dont you think its a lil ignorant to keep on going about pirating is "stealing" in all cases when this topic is all about discussing this? Just because something is deemed "stealing" by law doesnt mean everybody has to agree with it. It is the very essence of this discussion which u conveniently ignore by just throwing around the term "stealing" as often as you can to make sure you get ur standpoint across. btw newsflash: i also dont go to movie theaters, as you could have imagined with somebody who doesnt even own a TV.
Just because many people abuse piracy also is no argument that its bad in itself. Also I dont know how its in the Netherlands but in Germany u cant just go and buy a DVD, rip open the sealed container and watch it, then bring it back and claim your money back. This is what I consider far more immoral than pirating, forcing people to buy something they cant legally fully test before they buy it, and even doing deceiving "trailers" which basically make every shitty movie make seem funny or intelligent or whatever agenda they are trying to push. Especially since there is not much reuse value in a movie. If u buy a Sandwich (thx honesttea) u pay the shop once and then u can decide whether u want sandwich from that particular restaurant/diner again. U can't deny that you most likely will more often need to eat something (or even sandwich if u love it that much) than u will watch the same film over and over again.
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Does it matter if it's right or wrong? It's not going to go away because people can argue against it.
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On October 05 2008 02:31 Makhno wrote:
Does it matter if it's right or wrong? It's not going to go away because people can argue against it.
Well this thread would be pointless then. I think u can as well argue for pirating from a perfectly morally acceptable point of view, as well as u can argue against it.
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However, you don't go to the sandwhich store, take a sandwhich without paying for it and then if you decide you liked it, pay for it afterwards. You pay for the product in advance in the hope that you will like it. If you don't like it you don't go there again and find a diffirent sandwhich store. So why not do the same for movies, songs or games? Don't buy from companies that you know won't produce stuff that you like. And if a new company comes along and online reviews, opinions from friends/people with the same taste as you tell it is good, buy one product and check that out.
And forcing people to buy something before they test it. You do that with the sandwhich as well, although there can be ofcourse be the exception where you can taste the sandwhich first, but I don't know of a lot of places where that happens. I do know however that when buying a music CD in the store I can listen to it first before buying it. Online I can listen to parts of it as well and usually a band's site features several complete songs that I can listen to. Game company's often give out demo's and there are so many gaming websites out there that I can usually get a good image from a game before buying them. The same goes for websites and persons that review movies.
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On October 05 2008 02:36 Lenwe wrote:
However, you don't go to the sandwhich store, take a sandwhich without paying for it and then if you decide you liked it, pay for it afterwards. You pay for the product in advance in the hope that you will like it. If you don't like it you don't go there again and find a diffirent sandwhich store. So why not do the same for movies, songs or games? Don't buy from companies that you know won't produce stuff that you like. And if a new company comes along and online reviews, opinions from friends/people with the same taste as you tell it is good, buy one product and check that out.
And forcing people to buy something before they test it. You do that with the sandwhich as well, although there can be ofcourse be the exception where you can taste the sandwhich first, but I don't know of a lot of places where that happens. I do know however that when buying a music CD in the store I can listen to it first before buying it. Online I can listen to parts of it as well and usually a band's site features several complete songs that I can listen to. Game company's often give out demo's and there are so many gaming websites out there that I can usually get a good image from a game before buying them. The same goes for websites and persons that review movies.
dude i am a drum and bass DJ and believe it or not, there is no copyright on drum and bass. So basically I dont pirate music ever, and still i spent thousands of bux in support of the producers/labels because when I like a tune I buy the vinyl to be able to play it at the club. I think CD-DJs are retarded but hey, if they want to, they can download all kinds of dnb tracks and play them at the club on their no-skill cd decks without fear of any legal investigation.
also the sandwich comparison lacks in term of reusability as i tried to explain in the post before. The sandwich guys dont make the majority of their money by selling one sandwich to everyone, but by creating a good product which makes people come back and buy the same sandwich again (or another if they feel comfortable with the overall quality of the shop). If they dont make a good product, they are bound to go down the shitter cus nobody will come back. This is unfortunately not true for the film industry, just look at Uwe Boll for christs sake. They couldnt care less what quality their product has cus once u spent the 10 bucks for the cinema or DVD, u spent all the money on this product they wanted to get out of you. Only a tiny tiny minority buys the same DVD twice or watches the same movie more than once in a theatre.
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We can all see that there is less money in pc games, come on. Just go down to your local gaming store and looking how much space pc games get.
I would expect that's in no small part due to piracy, only MMOs are safe. Less money for the developers, less and worse games, and less 'gambles'. So even though it might only directly hurt one person or entity to pirate their works, if it stops them from making the same quality or quantity of works, everyone who enjoys their stuff is hurt.
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4492 Posts
HonestTea, that sandwich argument is inherently flawed.
If you wanted to make a comparison, you should say the sandwich man made up a sandwich (which he is unable to produce by himself, btw), then tells other people (managers) how to make it, who in turn hire people to produce it, sell it, and he gets tons of money (th managers as well, while the people physically preparing it get payed significantly less). For the one-time work of making up a new form of sandwich a "sandwich artist" gets payed a lot. Nobody else is allowed to make that same sandwich, because he owns it. Whenever you decide you want to make such a sandwich, you have to pay the sandwich guy, else you are stealing. Even though you buy and pay for all the ingredients (lettuce, tomato, CD, whatever) and do all the physical work (prepare the sandwich, download the movie, burn the CD) you are still stealing, because that type of sandwich (music, movie) is copyrighted. And if you dare make the same sandwich at home you risk the police bursting in and seizing you for "stealing". Doesn't that sound a bit off to you?
So no, you can't do it with sandwiches, then why can you do it with movies and CDs? If you want a super-professionally done sandwich with little hassle, super ingredients, and right then and there, you pay extra for that (as opposed to making it yourself, at home). If you want to see a movie on big screen with super sound, you pay extra for it (as opposed to watching it on 14" screen, with laptop sound, at home). If you want a pretty cover, a complimentary poster, a nice looking box on your shelf, you pay extra (as opposed to just a plain old CD written on by a magic marker, and nothing else to go with it).
This is the reason people are still (as was customary throughout ages past as well) spending time on "art", since it's a good way to become very rich with very little effort. Sure, it's difficult to get everything right, but once you do, you can become disproportionally wealthy.
So if you want to, pay the sandwich man, but don't get carried away with it - he doesn't "own" the idea of the sandwich. If you want HIM (the master) to make the sandwich, and wrap it in gift-wrap and eat it at his fancy sandwich restaurant, pay him extra. If you make the sandwich at home, just mentally thank the sandwich man for the nice idea, that's it.
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If there were a magical cloning device that could clone sandwiches, and people would clone sandwiches and distribute them free in the streets, then you are NOT PAYING THE SANDWICH MAN TO MAKE SANDWICHES
piracy = not paying the sandwich man
at least, this is true in the year 2008. And it must change. It has to change. But for now, please pay the sandwich man?
If there were a magical cloning device that could clone sandwiches, wouldn't the highest imperative to massively reduce our society's needs for agricultural land and end hunger?
Make another analogy, this one is horrible for holding up what you're trying to hold up; the world doesn't need a sandwich man if the reality of the situation has made obsolete his function. Maybe you could be a sandwich improver guy, with after-clone additions, like olives, cheese, etc. Maybe you could be a sandwich eating table renter. Maybe you could do a bunch of shit that didn't involve trying to sell a product which just isn't going to sell like it did in the pre-clone days.
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On October 05 2008 01:55 Lenwe wrote:
Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you shouldn't have to pay for the product. If you don't like Hollywood movies then that's allright. Don't go to the movie theater to see them or don't get the DVD. However, if you download them then you are stealing them and it doesn't matter wether you like them or not. Buy the DVD, watch it and if you don't like it go back to the store and trade it for a diffirent movie.
And it's great that the indepent movie studio sold one more copy to you after you stole their movie from some torrent site. Too bad your indepent movie company has a hard time selling more copy's cause everyone else that downloaded that torrent isn't going to the store. Yes, there's is always the risk that you go to a movie theather and don't like the movie, or that you buy a game and don't like it. That doesn't give you the right to steal them.
I think this sums up the stupidity of some of these arguments nicely.
You don't like something, great. Don't buy it.
So why are you downloading it?
"oh because the evil movie companies make mediocre shit!"
SO WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU WATCHING IT!?
"because it hurts the companies!"
???
Dumb logic. Seriously.
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Game developers make shit games with their shitty formulas for a smash hit. This is how the movie industry operates, and has been operating for a long time upon discovering. So that works, they make some bucks. I am totally for advertisements in games, that makes sense from a business perspective.
Heres my argument, first off I may or may not pirate games, why would I? I'm a veteran. I make good money. I have some moral principles left. So why?
Because demo's have become increasingly simplistic and like a trailer for a movie only showcasing what they did right in the very smallest of forms. Good business but a consumer that has options isn't going to accept that nonsense. Why don't I pirate the game for free, play it, decide if its worth buying after I've enjoyed, am in the middle of enjoying the game? It doesn't feel like stealing, in fact I don't lose an inch of sleep at night thinking of the hard working morons in the game industry. (Don't take that as an insult I have a personal relationship with the game industry and I know it sucks for the trench digger, welcome to the shit rolls down hill club.)
I did this for BioShock, around the middle of the game I decided to buy it via a direct download (Direct2Drive) digital purchaser (more on this later because its a good idea). Other examples, I got my hands on Sin of Solar Empire, played it, played it... oh wait theres nothing else to this game, not worth $59. GLAD I DIDN'T BUY IT. Can you argue against that?
Realistically there are only 3-4 companies I buy games from nowadays, everyone else goes through my rigorous trial period before I buy. Blizzard is on my list of auto-buy because they release QUALITY and I have come to expect that from them. THQ because they also release quality games that don't always adhere to the archtype model for business. Sid-Meyer's company (whichever one he is at-at the time) because I've always loved Civ games and they're all the same. And I can never think of the rest.
All in all over the last few years I have got my hands on more pirated games than bought games because they didn't live up to the hype and wasn't worth $60. Case in point was Crysis, now they blamed every pirater in the known universe for their inability to sell this game. What didn't sell this game to me? Its multiplayer was a fucking joke and I beat the single player in a matter of hours. How the hell is that worth 60 dollars? It may take me 4-6 hours to work that much money for that game and I beat it and never play it again.
Other reasons to pirate; STALKER- Clear Sky, this game is so broken I can't play it for a solid 8 hours before I get crashed, either to desktop or some bug error. You couldn't convince me pirating this game before buying it was wrong. And more on that subject, if the companies are sucking, the industry is the problem. The entertainment industry is a weird environment to work in especially for games. These people put 80-100 hours into making a video game for little or no compensation REGARDLESS of piracy.
Oh and piracy? Has it not always existed? Hasn't there always been some form of stealing something, a friend? A LAN center? The internet made it mainstream I guess--I GUESS--but its not like there wasn't stealing before. Burned CDs, DVDs, black markets, etc. The argument against piracy is an argument against capitalism, morality and how society works/operates. Good luck with that shit and trying to convince anyone because it all just comes back to money.
This post did make myself ask myself (?) why I still pirate music online. I don't have a good reason so I guess I am a thief now in that regard. I still buy movies and games but I havn't bought a CD (I have my reasons) in years. Mostly because I don't enjoy all the songs on a CD and I can just download the individual ones that I do enjoy.
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United States12235 Posts
It seems like a lot of people aren't reading the entire thread before responding. Six people have quoted the same single fragment from my initial reply without seeing my clarification on the second page. Rather than repeat myself I'm going to have to edit my initial post. Read the whole thread before responding, you silly lurkers!
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Oh and as far as the movie, I'm going to watch it after I get off work if I can.
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I, too, choose to pirate movies before I invest money into purchasing them. I, too, only buy the movies I truly enjoy.
Since practicing this, I have discovered that I don't truly enjoy any movies =[
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HonestTea
5007 Posts
I'm sick of saying "A is B" and having other people say "CDEFGHIJK"
I weep tears of black because no one seems to have addressed the fact that: I used the sandwich man example to illustrate that without copyright, creatives have no way to be compensated for their efforts, so they will be unable to further create. This damages everyone.
Copyright also enables records companies (which do have a function), archiving/restoring, and marketing/advertising.
People who pirate are not thinking of the consequences to those who they pirate off of. The only arguments in this sorry thread are self-centered: I pirate because it benefits ME thusly...
I am hearing the following arguments:
"Copyright is why Uwe Boll is rich and gets to make shitty movies."
No, Uwe Boll is rich and gets to make shitty movies BECAUSE A LOT OF SORRY PEOPLE PAY TO SEE THEM.
"Copyrighted shit usually sucks"
Copyright is not a matter of taste. As I said before, Copyright allows YOU the buyer to decide with your money what products are good and what products are shitty. It is the democratization of patronage. Otherwise you'd have the rich people of the world sponsoring artists and setting the standards of taste for everyone else.
Furthermore, copyright and IP protection is just as important for those poor indie starving artists as it is for Evil Mega Media Companies.
Read my post and tell me why I am wrong. Like Mynock. Thank you Mynock.
Mynock, the purpose of the sandwich shop was to show what happens with the creator is not properly compensated for his/her efforts. However, as you point out, a movie is not a sandwich.
But a movie, or a finished song, or a game, is more of a finished product than it is an idea. The way piracy is now, people aren't just taking the idea, they are taking the entire product and distributing it for free. It's not like people are just taking the idea of a movie and then making their own movie.
a "super-professional" sandwich doesn't just mean the big screen with super sound, or the pretty cover, or the nice looking box. It means a lot of things that are already in the movie. "super-professional" means the professional acting, professional lighting, professional camerawork, professional storytelling... "super-professional" means tens of thousands of hours of labor for hundreds of trained professionals.
If you want, you can take the basic plot of Die Hard and try to film it yourself with your own means, with your own camera, with your cousin as John McClaine and a bum down the street as Hans Gruber. But would you watch it? See, you get "movie quality" by compensating movie makers... and some of that compensation gets lost in piracy.
Anybody who has a job will understand. Movies just don't magically appear out of Hollywood. People like me spend blood sweat and tears to make a movie. It is LABOR. Any other form of labor is guaranteed by law to be compensated. Compensate mine too!
And this affects every one else, because as I keep pointing out, if you will not compensate me for my labor, I will stop laboring. And if you do not compensate an entire industry for their efforts, they will cease to make effort. Then no more good movies for you.
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4492 Posts
I do understand the basic idea HT, but I can't agree about it being true for the movie industry in particular. The movie industry is still HUGELY profitable, even with mediocre products. And it's really not because the movies are so great, more because the movie in and on itself is a social "thing", with the big screen and super sound and your girlfriend at your arm serving as a "setting" you wouldn't get otherwise (unless you have a $1000 7.1 mahogany DTS set with a projector at home, that is ). Still, the extremely bad movies manage to fail and become unprofitable, but that's a very good thing IMHO. It deters the makers from producing REALLY bad stuff (tho it still happens, alas).
And for example, I thought spending $80 on a LotR collection of 12 DVDs was a good investment, but then again what I got for it was a) no hassle with DLing the movie, b) excellent quality, c) super extended edition, d) tons of stuff like the staff comments and documentaries, e) eye-candy boxes that look extremely nicely on my shelf And that's the stuff I'm talking about. Put in some more effort than your basic downloadable version and everyone benefits. The viewer will know he gets something he can't get elsewhere, the makers still profit the same (or more), it encourages the makers to put in extra effort, it encourages the viewer to support them.
Anyway, I'd write more, but I have to run now, so maybe later.
Oh and HT, people probably didn't read you post since it was loooooong. You probably could have gotten used to it in General by now tho
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On October 05 2008 02:20 damenmofa wrote:Show nested quote +On October 05 2008 01:55 Lenwe wrote:
Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you shouldn't have to pay for the product. If you don't like Hollywood movies then that's allright. Don't go to the movie theater to see them or don't get the DVD. However, if you download them then you are stealing them and it doesn't matter wether you like them or not. Buy the DVD, watch it and if you don't like it go back to the store and trade it for a diffirent movie.
And it's great that the indepent movie studio sold one more copy to you after you stole their movie from some torrent site. Too bad your indepent movie company has a hard time selling more copy's cause everyone else that downloaded that torrent isn't going to the store. Yes, there's is always the risk that you go to a movie theather and don't like the movie, or that you buy a game and don't like it. That doesn't give you the right to steal them. Dont you think its a lil ignorant to keep on going about pirating is "stealing" in all cases when this topic is all about discussing this? Just because something is deemed "stealing" by law doesnt mean everybody has to agree with it. It is the very essence of this discussion which u conveniently ignore by just throwing around the term "stealing" as often as you can to make sure you get ur standpoint across. btw newsflash: i also dont go to movie theaters, as you could have imagined with somebody who doesnt even own a TV. Just because many people abuse piracy also is no argument that its bad in itself. Also I dont know how its in the Netherlands but in Germany u cant just go and buy a DVD, rip open the sealed container and watch it, then bring it back and claim your money back. This is what I consider far more immoral than pirating, forcing people to buy something they cant legally fully test before they buy it, and even doing deceiving "trailers" which basically make every shitty movie make seem funny or intelligent or whatever agenda they are trying to push. Especially since there is not much reuse value in a movie. If u buy a Sandwich (thx honesttea) u pay the shop once and then u can decide whether u want sandwich from that particular restaurant/diner again. U can't deny that you most likely will more often need to eat something (or even sandwich if u love it that much) than u will watch the same film over and over again.
HEY BLOCKBUSTER! Ever heard of renting movies? It's exactly the same as what you just suggested with the sandwich shop. You can watch it fully, and legally, several times through if you'd like. Then you could decide whether or not you'd like to purchase that movie to keep for good. Wow, what a concept.
On October 05 2008 04:08 Mynock wrote:
HonestTea, that sandwich argument is inherently flawed.
If you wanted to make a comparison, you should say the sandwich man made up a sandwich (which he is unable to produce by himself, btw), then tells other people (managers) how to make it, who in turn hire people to produce it, sell it, and he gets tons of money (th managers as well, while the people physically preparing it get payed significantly less). For the one-time work of making up a new form of sandwich a "sandwich artist" gets payed a lot. Nobody else is allowed to make that same sandwich, because he owns it. Whenever you decide you want to make such a sandwich, you have to pay the sandwich guy, else you are stealing. Even though you buy and pay for all the ingredients (lettuce, tomato, CD, whatever) and do all the physical work (prepare the sandwich, download the movie, burn the CD) you are still stealing, because that type of sandwich (music, movie) is copyrighted. And if you dare make the same sandwich at home you risk the police bursting in and seizing you for "stealing". Doesn't that sound a bit off to you?
So no, you can't do it with sandwiches, then why can you do it with movies and CDs? If you want a super-professionally done sandwich with little hassle, super ingredients, and right then and there, you pay extra for that (as opposed to making it yourself, at home). If you want to see a movie on big screen with super sound, you pay extra for it (as opposed to watching it on 14" screen, with laptop sound, at home). If you want a pretty cover, a complimentary poster, a nice looking box on your shelf, you pay extra (as opposed to just a plain old CD written on by a magic marker, and nothing else to go with it).
This is the reason people are still (as was customary throughout ages past as well) spending time on "art", since it's a good way to become very rich with very little effort. Sure, it's difficult to get everything right, but once you do, you can become disproportionally wealthy.
So if you want to, pay the sandwich man, but don't get carried away with it - he doesn't "own" the idea of the sandwich. If you want HIM (the master) to make the sandwich, and wrap it in gift-wrap and eat it at his fancy sandwich restaurant, pay him extra. If you make the sandwich at home, just mentally thank the sandwich man for the nice idea, that's it.
I'm sure people would very gladly allow you to put a band together and reproduce the music at home to listen to it. But that's not what you're doing, is it? That's what you're suggesting in the sandwich idea, but it's not what you're doing with the music.
If you want to argue pricing, no one will disagree (unless they're disgustingly rich). Things are way over priced. Maybe game producers should give a 24 hour trial of the game they make, so you can go through more than one level. I don't think anyone is disagreeing that the system needs reform, but just taking something you have no right to take is not the answer to the problem.
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HonestTea, I noticed every single one of your arguments, every single one of them, are all derive from the same flawed logical axiom. Which is also the same assumption that build the base of most official anti-piracy arguments such as those from articles in the MPAA website and IP law sites. Which is: you make the assumption that without copyright there is no way any artist could make any money at all.
If this was true, then all your line of thought would fit. And I would have no option to agree with everything you're saying, it's very simple:
- piracy -> artists can't make no money at all no matter what -> zero incentives for new artists / existing artists starve to death -> bad for creativity, for economics, society, artists, non-artists, custumers, everyone! -> everyone who is in favor of piracy are only dumb and selfish!
This would all make sense, perfect logic, I would agree with you. But you take off the small detail where artists can't make a living, and all your arguments go down the drain with it.
Then you also assume that I agree with that unfounded postulate myself. When I have actually been preaching the contrary in since the start!!! Do you think I'm trying to say that artists should live off sunlight?
Which makes me wonder: You seem like a smart and educated person. You already acknowledge that artists always existed and lived well and got paid (ex patronized musicians) even before copyright laws even existed! You also agree that intellectual property will be extinct in the (near?) future. So before I show you dozens of today's example of successful art outside of copyright, answer me this: Why do you think there are will be no financial alternatives to copyright? When the time comes that copyright doesn't exist anymore, do you think all human creativity will cease to exist? There will be no more artists in the planet because they'll all starve to death? Patrons paid Mozart hundreds of years ago but no one will be willing to patronize artists in the future (besides many people on this thread saying they love to support some artist/company)? Humanity, who has been creating art since over 10k years ago will just never find a solution only because this one law that puts a monopoly on art will disappear?? Are you really that superficial?
Do I really have to show you great artists and software without IP today? Even without the gigantic support (actually marginalized by) from main stream media and consequent gigantic money that comes with it? What do you think will be mainstream when record companies bankrupt? Art is all over the fucking internet, Google is there to help you find it all. http://www.gnu.org/ or http://www.free-culture.cc/ are also great places to start learning about the world that is beyond 1 foot far from your eyes, so you can stop spilling this kind of ignorance:On October 04 2008 22:44 HonestTea wrote:
Piracy hurts that very few amount of the population who: 1) CREATE THE STUFF FOR THE REST OF THE POPULATION Please never say this again. Not even 0.0001% of those who "create stuff for the rest of the population" have copyrighted material, I really hope you weren't serious when you wrote this ><
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Why do you think there are will be no financial alternatives to copyright?
Why do you think there will...
Name me one viable alternative, show me it work, and THEN we can replace the idea of copyright.
HonestTea's argument is the only sane post (and mynock's) I've read thus far. Yes his logic is a little flawed because a sandwich is an excludable good, whereas movies, games and music are not (ie if eat my sandwich, no-one else can, whereas if i play my CD, I can give it to someone else to listen to at no extra cost).
The real reason piracy has become such a huge problem is because its become possible to do it cheaply and effectively recently, whereas previously it was not (you couldn't copy a vinyl for example). The industries have been slow to react and have had difficult adjusting, this is undeniable. The suggestion that the way copyright is being enforced needs to change is undeniable, because when I purchase a song off itunes for $1 I get the same product (worse actually, fuck off DRM) as on bittorrent for free, whereas previously a pirated product would have been inferior (as a generalisation).
But this is not the argument that is being put forward here, the rather ludicrous argument that is being suggested is that copyright and IP should be abolished entirely, with the justification that its better for you not to have to pay. Look at the big picture. If you don't pay, no-one gets paid and there is no incentive.
This is how patents began, if there is no way to make money by inventing stuff because once you have invented it, everyone else immediatly has the same design, why bother trying to invent its better to wait for the other guys to do it. THE FREE RIDER PRINCIPLE - OMFG - ECONOMICS!
Very clever people have thought about this ALOT, and they came up with the method of patent protection that exists today, and look at that, it works. Maybe it isn't adapting well with music/games/movies and the current digital age. Fine. Doesn't mean we should stop paying everyone because you want free stuff.
Yes, the GNU project is an exception, but its just that an exception. There is a crapload of great free software available, some of it much better than commercial offerings. But it is the exception. Those products are only made available by talented hobbyists who devote their leisure time to do it because, SHOCK HORROR, they get something out of doing so - enjoyment. Its a different payment, but it is still one. No rational person will create something if they are not rewarded in some way, and whilst a few individuals do happily work for enjoyment, the vast majority of us can't afford to devote our lives to producing free software because surprisingly we need to eat.
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HonestTea
5007 Posts
To add:
1. Copyright and Piracy are not the same issue, as gussy explains above.
2. I thought we were talking about piracy, but apparantly I'm at the wrong party. I guess we're talking about copyright now. Might as well dance while I'm here, enjoy the open bar.
Free Culture was written by a Mr. Lawrence Lessig. Based on his philosophy about information and ownership, he has founded the Creative Commons
Let's do something I like to call, reading!
How does a Creative Commons license operate?
A Creative Commons license is based on copyright. So they apply to all works that are protected by copyright law. The kinds of works that are protected by copyright law are books, websites, blogs, photographs, films, videos, songs and other audio & visual recordings, for example. Software programs are also protected by copyright but, as explained below, we do not recommend that you apply a Creative Commons license to software code.
source: Creative Commons official webpage: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ
See, even Lessig awknowledges the right of ownership to a creation.
Vib, all I'm asking is that you properly read and understand the concepts you are throwing around here. Even if we disagree, if you at least know what you're talking about than you can make me think. I'm an easy guy. But when you bring a gun to a fight, make sure the barrel isn't pointing at your face.
Lessig is arguing that the concept of copyright has become distorted by big companies in a way that protect the interest of the companies over the interests of the individual creators. He makes many very good points.
You are arguing... well I'm not sure what you're arguing. But it's not what Lessig or the Free Culture movement is arguing. And it's wrong.
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On October 06 2008 15:28 VIB wrote:HonestTea, I noticed every single one of your arguments, every single one of them, are all derive from the same flawed logical axiom. Which is also the same assumption that build the base of most official anti-piracy arguments such as those from articles in the MPAA website and IP law sites. Which is: you make the assumption that without copyright there is no way any artist could make any money at all. If this was true, then all your line of thought would fit. And I would have no option to agree with everything you're saying, it's very simple: - piracy -> artists can't make no money at all no matter what -> zero incentives for new artists / existing artists starve to death -> bad for creativity, for economics, society, artists, non-artists, custumers, everyone! -> everyone who is in favor of piracy are only dumb and selfish! This would all make sense, perfect logic, I would agree with you. But you take off the small detail where artists can't make a living, and all your arguments go down the drain with it. Then you also assume that I agree with that unfounded postulate myself. When I have actually been preaching the contrary in since the start!!! Do you think I'm trying to say that artists should live off sunlight? Which makes me wonder: You seem like a smart and educated person. You already acknowledge that artists always existed and lived well and got paid (ex patronized musicians) even before copyright laws even existed! You also agree that intellectual property will be extinct in the (near?) future. So before I show you dozens of today's example of successful art outside of copyright, answer me this: Why do you think there are will be no financial alternatives to copyright? When the time comes that copyright doesn't exist anymore, do you think all human creativity will cease to exist? There will be no more artists in the planet because they'll all starve to death? Patrons paid Mozart hundreds of years ago but no one will be willing to patronize artists in the future (besides many people on this thread saying they love to support some artist/company)? Humanity, who has been creating art since over 10k years ago will just never find a solution only because this one law that puts a monopoly on art will disappear?? Are you really that superficial? Do I really have to show you great artists and software without IP today? Even without the gigantic support (actually marginalized by) from main stream media and consequent gigantic money that comes with it? What do you think will be mainstream when record companies bankrupt? Art is all over the fucking internet, Google is there to help you find it all. http://www.gnu.org/ or http://www.free-culture.cc/ are also great places to start learning about the world that is beyond 1 foot far from your eyes, so you can stop spilling this kind of ignorance: Show nested quote +On October 04 2008 22:44 HonestTea wrote:
Piracy hurts that very few amount of the population who: 1) CREATE THE STUFF FOR THE REST OF THE POPULATION Please never say this again. Not even 0.0001% of those who "create stuff for the rest of the population" have copyrighted material, I really hope you weren't serious when you wrote this ><
These industries are still profitable because not everyone thinks they deserve to have something for free. Obviously, if everyone pirated all of these industries would die instantly. But for now, it's okay if you're a leech because there are enough people still purchasing to make up for oyu.
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are there any researches done to see how the revenue of the entertainment industry has been impacted by piracy?
i think a powerful argument can be made that piracy and the internet helped bring culture to the masses who otherwise would not have enjoyed or paid for that culture and that probably counteracted the negatives of piracy, if not overwhelmed them. the pay the sandwich man example doesn't really fit because i think the sandwich man might be very rich right now.
or maybe the industry really is dying, hopefully somebody knows. but from just my everyday knowledge (or assumptions), the industry is doing better than ever? there are so many movies, musicians nowadays that it's hard to imagine that the industry really is in danger.
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Why do people not take responsibility for their actions? I see this in all facets of life. People ought to know the difference between right and wrong, and if they still go ahead and do the wrong things, then at the very least admit it.
I know piracy is wrong but I still do it. I will be one of the few to admit this. The reason I do it is because I don't have a lot of money and yes, like everyone, I also like to have something for nothing. For those who are using the code of law to show that piracy is wrong should ask themselves if they've ever committed a crime, even a trivial one, and see if they can still talk.
I actually believe 'piracy' does a lot of good in addition to the bad stuff like taking money away from the people who created the original. Piracy allows alot of people who wouldn't have the resources to afford this stuff to actually enjoy some of these things. I think it helps to even out the playing field just a little bit. Some people abuse the system and others take advantage of it, there's a difference. But as of right now, i completely condone piracy.
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On October 04 2008 10:17 DrainX wrote:
Before it was possible to record music onto an album there were still musicians. The purpose of the recording and distributing music is not to make money for the record companies or the artist its purpose is to distribute music. The reason the laws are the way they are and it costs so much is because earlier the only way to distribute music was to have a strong central organization such as a radio station or a record company. Plus production and transportation also costs. Today you dont need a big central organization to distribute music. You don't need to pay anything for production and transportation of physical records. There is no cost in copying a file other than the cost of electricity and computer power. Artists can get along fine without record companies just like they did before they existed.
The diversity and the access is much better today than it was before the internet. Since people can listen to any amount of music for free they aren't limited to experiencing what they have heard at their friends house or on the radio. You don't need to pay big bucks to explore new kinds of music and diversify your music taste. Many artists thrive from file sharing releasing many if not all songs online and thereby getting more fans who buy their merchandise and pay to come to their concerts which is anyway where artist earn most of their money today.
You can't even remotelly back this up. Give me 10 examples of artists that have succeded doing this without being backed up and promoted by some kind of label first.
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On October 06 2008 20:30 Starparty wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2008 10:17 DrainX wrote:
Before it was possible to record music onto an album there were still musicians. The purpose of the recording and distributing music is not to make money for the record companies or the artist its purpose is to distribute music. The reason the laws are the way they are and it costs so much is because earlier the only way to distribute music was to have a strong central organization such as a radio station or a record company. Plus production and transportation also costs. Today you dont need a big central organization to distribute music. You don't need to pay anything for production and transportation of physical records. There is no cost in copying a file other than the cost of electricity and computer power. Artists can get along fine without record companies just like they did before they existed.
The diversity and the access is much better today than it was before the internet. Since people can listen to any amount of music for free they aren't limited to experiencing what they have heard at their friends house or on the radio. You don't need to pay big bucks to explore new kinds of music and diversify your music taste. Many artists thrive from file sharing releasing many if not all songs online and thereby getting more fans who buy their merchandise and pay to come to their concerts which is anyway where artist earn most of their money today. You can't even remotelly back this up. Give me 10 examples of artists that have succeded doing this without being backed up and promoted by some kind of label first. it's true, a lot of indie artists depend on people hearing their sound since they don't have the backing of a huge label with huge advertising. you're not gonna hear any answers like "the beatles", but i don't see how you think this is impossible? did you not see the latest nine inch nails sales method, and how radiohead followed suit because of how popular it was? hell, that's like the #1 way to do it if you don't have a label
i guess if you measure "success" by platinum-selling albums or endorsement deals, then yeah maybe it's uncommon?? otherwise i don't understand how you can't even begin to fathom musicians becoming popular using free distribution of their media. look at fucking youtube man, how do you think ronald jenkees or derrick comedy ever got popular?
edit: like seriously are you trolling right now? or have you time traveled from the past when the internet didn't exist? ...or what because seriously it's absurd that you can't believe this
editedit: i can't believe that you can't believe this
editeditedit: like lmfao you can't even remotely back this up?? like to you there's not even a fucking speck of evidence that MAYBE someone became popular by filesharing their music? LOL????
editediteditedit: i mean no offense but did you not know that the internet is like the #1 marketing method for music? do you um... do you know what the internet is have you ever been on the internet
editediteditedtitedti: i've decided you're just a troll
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HonestTea
5007 Posts
Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead got to do it because they are late into their careers, after having reached millions of fans because of the record label system.
But if Yubee and the Quartertones tried to do this tomorrow, they would not be self-sufficient.
I'm not saying it won't work, but NIN and Radiohead are really bad examples.
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On October 06 2008 21:11 HonestTea wrote:
Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead got to do it because they are late into their careers, after having reached millions of fans because of the record label system.
But if Yubee and the Quartertones tried to do this tomorrow, they would not be self-sufficient.
I'm not saying it won't work, but NIN and Radiohead are really bad examples. ok sure but yubee and the quartertones would gain a lot of popularity through filesharing, much more than if they did not fileshare... and did nothing. i mean what band IS self-sufficient when it first starts?
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And ive decided that youre just a complete moron. All examples you managed to produce was NiN and Radiohead (and a bunch of unnamed bands collectivelly named as "indy stuff", which not even you seem to have heard of), 2 bands which is already known worldwide since before, just as i expected. Absolutelly not saying that it didnt happen, but the point is as my quoted post said - there is so much diversity. And without a company pushing for you, getting enough fans to make your music succesful by yourself is basically impossible unless your name is basshunter and alot of 14yo kids has weird taste.
Just because some random dude listened to a song doesnt mean the artist makes enough money to buy food for the day.
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HonestTea
5007 Posts
Yeah but if I were Quatertone #2, I'd say,
"But Yubee, yeah this youtube thing is great, but we should also at the same time be looking for official management, because they can use their resources to get us on radio, TV, and in professional recording studios.
AND even if we want to keep the thing viral, we could still do that too... but if you really believe in your dream of becoming a musician, let's sign with somebody!
I mean, shit, record labels arn't marshmallows and candy. I know they're fucking up a lot of things. I just still believe they serve a necessary service - for now - in the distribution system.
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you'll never be a quartertone honesttea... not at this rate... we're quartertones, of course we're looking for management. but a lot of young, talented musicians don't even know where to begin with this kind of thing, and what better way to get off the ground than filesharing? of course nobody decides to "keep the thing viral", the #1 goal of all musicians ever is to sell out and get rich, i'm just saying filesharing via the internet has become an extremely viable step towards success in today's industry, so it's kind of ridiculous how starparty can't imagine it ever working.
and starparty, ok radiohead and NIN, OK BAD EXAMPLES? I CAN ACCEPT THAT OK? but are you seriously asking me to tell you artists who are NOT indie that use filesharing as a method of distribution? in other words, you want me to tell you some non-independent artists that don't have a label? isn't that kind of an oxymoron? regardless, i don't have a big list of people who use the filesharing method ready for some shmuck who asks for it, and i'm not about to go looking for it. if you really cared about learning about that method of promotion, you'd use google. instead, you only want to win an internet argument. open up ya mind bra!
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On October 06 2008 21:22 Starparty wrote:
And ive decided that youre just a complete moron. ps that hurts my feelings!!
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i apologize for that actually, i get carried away easily. I refer to honestteas latest posts since they express my standing in the argument, but in a more politically correct way.
Edit: And not to mention that the post i was originally responding too was refering to the unneccesity of record labels today, something my answer tried to misprove in a rather provocative way. As for taking that apart and letting the argument drift off, you are responsible. Dont accuse me of simply trying to win an argument rather than opening my eyes, when you are the narrowminded poster originally.
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=] thanks! that is extremely courteous of you
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HonestTea
5007 Posts
We get along so well - we should start a band!
CAPTURE SOME OF THIS LIGHTNING AND PUT IT IN A BOTTLE TO SELL!
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You write some lyrics, yubee sing them and ill make a song. Then we can let VIB fileshare it on piratebay so we can flame him some more for this thread
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OMG I must suck at writing, I can't get anyone to understand what I'm saying You guys take what I say and completely derail into something else that is totally irrelevant and just totally misses the point! Saying that I don't know what I am talking about because piracy has nothing to do with copyright and the creative commons is also copyright means you understood 0% (ZERO) of what I was trying to say and I wrote it all for nothing >< Is my english that bad?
This is exactly as if I said "hey guys there are healthy alternatives to hamburger sandwich, you could put soy meat on the sandwich instead" and then someone counters with "oh but soy meat sandwich is also a sandwich, see you don't even know your own arguments!! You're pointing the gun at yourself!" and someone else says "but soy meat is an exception, the one and only exception on planet earth! You cannot back this up with 10 other examples!"... WTF??? What do I do to make you guys comprehend?
Maybe we're just bumping into linguistics here? The term "intellectual property" is a broad one, I have been using this to refer to many different things, maybe this is the root of all confusion, from wikipidia:
+ Show Spoiler +"Intellectual property rights are a bundle of exclusive rights over creations of the mind, both artistic and commercial. The former is covered by copyright laws" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property"Critics of the term "intellectual property" argue that the increased use of this terminology coincided with a more general shift away from thinking about things like copyright and patent law as specific legal instruments designed to promote the common good and towards a conception of ideas as inviolable property granted by natural law.[1] The terminological shift coincides with the usage of pejorative terms for copyright infringement such as "piracy" and "theft"." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_intellectual_property
I only directed you to free-culture.cc to show you how alternatives to IP exists and artists which do not make money off copyright exists! Creative commons license is a copyright itself because that is the tools they have at their disposal to fight the war. That is totally irrelevant and besides my point.
About the whole "quote me 10 successful examples outside copyright/IP/intellectual monopoly/wtf you wanna call it":
- First of all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artic_monkeys - The Artic Monkeys. This is the biggest valid example I know personally. They went from 0% mainstream to 1st on billboard in one week. This was only, and absolutely only due to file-sharing, "Piracy!!" and their will to distribute their work online. There are tons of others going the same route and trying the same thing, I won't give you nine other examples because I have very little knowledge of music myself. But if you want: google, they're right there waiting for you to find them. If you're accepting software examples: Google and Ubunto are top 2 (among many others) who are selling what I have been preaching since post one: SERVICES instead of intellectual property (software). WoW is game making much bigger bucks off service instead of software. I would even like to cite Wikipidia!! because they're alive and kicking exclusively due to donations (resembles Mozart being patronized before copyright even existed anyone?).
- Second of all: "oh but those are either hobbyists who make no money or either they don't make as much money as copyrighted creators therefore do not qualify as success". Understand this: any art will always need audience to succeed regardless of what format to make money they choose. Big audience = mainstream. Today, mainstream = copyrighted IP material. This is why Britney Spears is richer than Mr. random guy trying to make money off adds in his personal blog where he upload his music creations. The thousands of people buying her album are just a consequence of the system, HonestTea. But when the day comes that record companies and copyright disappears (you guys do agree this is inevitable right?). Then IP material won't be mainstream anymore (it won't exist!) now will it? What is gonna be mainstream then? Mr. random guy uploading his (quality) personal stuff in his own blog is what is gonna be mainstream. If he is good enough, he will be the one making the big bucks. (not as big as Madonna ever has, which is why I say economic/social imbalance is one of the downsides of IP, but will still make more than enough to live with it). What a wonderful world to picture in our minds, isn't it? ^^
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i dont think the record companies will dissapear tbh. They fullfill a service that most single artists cant do for themselves - promote. They will naturally and hopefully change their appearances because as mentioned forward and back they are a bit oldfashion today. But i dont see why they should dissapear as long as they fullfill a service that nothing else do. They work like gate keepers, and those would be usefull even if the magical inturwebz was the only source of music we had.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but the billboard charts are calculated by album sales. So clearly people were buying the arctic monkeys, not only pirating it?
I would even like to cite Wikipidia!! - Don't let your teacher catch you doing that =P. Seriously though, this, like the GNU, is the exception not the rule. And its not a good exception either. You CANNOT use wikipedia as a source for anything because of its very model.
Today, mainstream = copyrighted IP material. This is why Britney Spears is richer than Mr. random guy trying to make money off adds in his personal blog where he upload his music creations
Sorry, no. You are suggesting that Britney Spears is mainstream because she is mainstream and thus rich, kind of circular argument don't you think. The copyright had nothing to do with her level of fame, people bought her stuff because they wanted to, for better or for worse. Just because you think Britney Spears is pure shit (I wouldn't disagree, but thats hardly the point), your views are hardly relevant, because a LARGE majority of people payed alot of money for it.
This idea of patronage you have is equally as, sorry, silly. This is again the free rider principle that i mentioned with respect to why patents were invented in the first place. Why become a patron when you could wait for someone else to and enjoy the benefits at no cost. Thus noone becomes the patron and noone makes any money. Artist can't afford to live, can't make music, everyone suffers. Thus patronage model doesn't work. Certainly this isn't a perfect model, because it assumes the free rider principle is 100% correct when this clearly isn't the case - radiohead in rainbows as an example of why. However for the LARGE majority of cases this is pretty correct, very clever economists tell us so.
Google has an interesting business model, but using them as an example is laughably incorrect. How did google become popular, PAGERANK. Why, because it kicked the crap out of other search algorithms. Why didn't other, more popular engines at the time, use it: OMFG PATENTS! Who would have thought - intellectual property at work, amazing. Yes google now offer vast services for free such as maps, search, and free software like chrome etc, but they do this because it keeps users on the google search engine, which keeps them looking at their ads, which makes them loads of money. This is the only NON-closed model that works for non-excludable goods, ie ad supported, and it has been used effectively alot. See commercial radio, tv, etc. But that's not to say its the best model in all situations. It would be very difficult for single player games to fund themselves solely on ad revenue. And lastly, its VERY hard to find sponsors and ads unless you are already big and well known, so its not a very viable model for alot of smaller creators.
Likewise MMOs can offer the game for free (they generally don't) and charge for the service of the subscription because in this case it actually is an excludable good. If you don't pay, you can't play on their server. That doesn't work for music, you don't pay per listen, or single player games. Likewise with music any number of people can listen once it has been purchased once, whereas with WoW its pretty much limited to the one player.
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EPT
