EPT'Censorship' of the Internet - Page 2
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Deimos0
Poland277 Posts
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S.O.L.I.D.
United States792 Posts
On February 21 2012 14:41 firehand101 wrote: Are you serious? THAT IS NOT STEALING?!? seriously, if you had no intention of buying it, then you should not get it for free! fml, life doesnt work like that. An artist doesnt pour his/her soul into a CD, just so someone like you can listen to it for the hell of it You do realize that a very very small percentage of album sales actually go to the artists, right? Album sales are about business, not music. Touring and concerts are about music, that's how artists make their money and that's what I personally see as a better way to support artists I like. That's not to say that I pirate all of my music, though, I have a few hundred CDs as well, but it's hard to buy everything I want to hear. If I do hear something and I think it's great, then I have no problem with buying it. I don't see piracy as anything different from listening to albums on youtube, honestly. | ||
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TerranosaurusWrecks
Canada187 Posts
We are copying something not stealing it. We don't actually kow how much companies are losing because a lot of the people who download things weren't going to buy the thing they are downloading in the first place, usually if people truly want something they pay for it. The one thing that bothers me most about this subject is that lets say I am super mega ultra popular, and I go out and buy the newest movie, If I invite 10,000 people into my home and let them watch it, is it a crime? I am just sharing, it's essentially the same thing as piracy, but the internet allows people to do it with ease and on greater scales, but inviting five people over and downloading something are the same thing in principle however, one of them is illegal, makes no sense to me. | ||
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LiamTheZerg
United States523 Posts
Especially when some of the artists are homegrown artists that make music because it's their dream and post it on the site. Also, did you know some artists are actually on these torrent sites and support them? Shocking, I know. Please research the topic before making a silly post like this. Businesses have been around for decades, but that doesn't mean they govern everything. The Internet is the first of it's kind, it belongs to no country, it has no rules, and it shouldn't be confined because of what used to be the standard. Society should adapt to the internet and how it helps/connects everything. Also, you make it sound like it's just people pirating for the sake of free music/for the sake of pirating. That's hardly the case, a fair amount of the professional pirating sites have members that are truly passionate about whatever they're pirating, be it music, books, movies, tv shows, or games. They have book clubs and movie clubs, many have their own blogs where they post highly intellectual reviews. It's not like they're base thieves, many of them are intellectuals that truly love the industry and pirate because they can't afford to buy 1000 albums at 9-14$ an album. | ||
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Bronyaur
United States20 Posts
On February 21 2012 15:14 FabledIntegral wrote: The vast majority of people, from what I'm aware, at least on teamliquid, don't believe it's stealing. By the definition of stealing: to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch. or theft: the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny. Let me ask you this. Is it wrong if someone in Iraq pirates a TV show they want to watch, which is not available to them otherwise? The Iraqi government doesn't care if they do it. The producers of the show can't gain any money from the pirate if they aren't selling to that market (say in this hypothetical scenario they aren't). Is there is issue here? I don't think so. The main argument for "it's not stealing" is that you aren't taking anything away from the company. If they aren't losing anything, then how you can you say you're stealing from them? I don't understand this. It seems like you are arguing about symantics in a ethics discussion. What if I said it's not cheating if I maphack but only if I'm going to win the game anyway. Maybe I pull some arbitrary definition of cheating from somewhere on the internet to back me up, and it states that cheating is getting an unfair advantage in order to win the game. But I was going to win anyway right? Well really the interesting discussion there is whether it's ethical or not, not whether you are fulfilling the webster definition. Sounds like rationalization to me. Re: OP. I think you have a good point, but I agree with other posters that the correct method isn't for us to bend over and take it and it's not reasonable to expect the planet to stop piracy. The best method is to get with the 21st century and provide a good service like Steam which will generate sales. It's nice to hope that will happen, but I'm not keeping my hopes up. Governments and traditional entities heavily tied to governments seem to get stuck in the "force you to do it my way" approach rather than the "provide the best service so people want to be your consumers" approach. | ||
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Kimaker
United States2131 Posts
Answer: WHAT IS BEING BROADCAST. As a historian with particular interest in American history, and specifically late 19th and 20th century, I can tell you that there exists a trend with mass communication and entertainment and that is the relegation of grassroots or specific audience targeting within media to be legislated into oblivion. Radio stations which had formerly catered to specific audiences, a blues radio station in south chicago, a local jazz station in New Orleans, were all destroyed not by market forces (they adequately catered to their viewership and made revenue) but rather by legislation intended to regulate broadcasting (for which there are practical reasons, but still the fact remains). These stations then, in order to survive were bought out by larger conglomerates such as NBC (the first big broadcasting corporation in the United States) which dictated content. For most of the history of mass communication WHAT was being put out was in the hands of a very small number of individuals. With the advent of the internet you have a situation where content is no longer being regulated in the same way. People make their own, they cater to specific groups and needs, and that openness of information is a factor. Go ahead, call me crazy, but as far as I'm concerned internet censorship being about "piracy" or "ownership" is the biggest farce I've ever heard. It's about controlling what you see and hear and that's it. NOTE: I'll have to double check some of the broadcasting history, but I'm fairly certain it's accurate based on what I recall from memory. | ||
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Jumbled
1543 Posts
First of all, it should be noted that copyright violation is not theft. They are both offences, but of very different kinds, and to equate them is both incorrect and propagandist. Secondly, as those protesting these acts are aware, these issues are only tangentially connected to censorship, and hence your title is rather misleading. There are only two main ties to censorship issues in this push for more draconian IP legislation. 1. Secretive negotiations. Here the concern is that censorship is being used to conceal the political and commercial processes leading to these laws being put in place. There is a distinct lack of transparency, and a justifiable fear that the secrecy is covering corruption in the form of govermental officials abusing their positions to put in place regulations designed to blatantly favour particular commercial groups. 2. Abuse of new laws. This is a problem arising from the overly-broad, poorly-designed and far-reaching nature of the proposed legislation, which often allows for abuses such as groups being targetted with automatic takedowns or restrictions without proper legal recourse or presumption of innocence. This provides tools allowing powerful groups to forcibly censor rivals, critics and other targets. Finally, these proposed acts are not inevitable in one form or another largely because they are not necessary. Violation of copyright is already an offence, and there are already laws and legal procedures in place throughout world to address it. Nothing in the way copyright is currently handled justifies the extensive rejection of civil liberties contained in proposals such as SOPA, ACTA, etc. | ||
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Chaosvuistje
Netherlands2581 Posts
I would have never bought the band shirts of bands I really support. I would have never spread my fanboyism out over my friends. But obviously I would buy more music because thats the only way I could get it! /sarcasm. | ||
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LittleAtari
Jordan1090 Posts
While artists don't get a direct percentage of the profits made off their album, you don't think that higher sales can affect their salaries? | ||
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SnipedSoul
Canada2158 Posts
On February 21 2012 15:29 TerranosauresWrecks wrote: Stealing and downloading are two tottally different things. We are copying something not stealing it. We don't actually kow how much companies are losing because a lot of the people who download things weren't going to buy the thing they are downloading in the first place, usually if people truly want something they pay for it. The one thing that bothers me most about this subject is that lets say I am super mega ultra popular, and I go out and buy the newest movie, If I invite 10,000 people into my home and let them watch it, is it a crime? I am just sharing, it's essentially the same thing as piracy, but the internet allows people to do it with ease and on greater scales, but inviting five people over and downloading something are the same thing in principle however, one of them is illegal, makes no sense to me. I believe the problem lies in creating a copy. I can loan a book out to as many people as I like and it's not copyright infringement. If I photocopy the book and give copies out to people then it's illegal. | ||
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Scripted
Slovenia16 Posts
Several exclusive rights typically attach to the holder of a copyright: -to produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies (including, typically, electronic copies) -to import or export the work -to create .... Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. Well shit... I guess CDs are only to be had on display, it's illegal to actually re-create the sound??? | ||
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Swiftay
Australia18 Posts
On February 21 2012 16:39 Scripted wrote: I'm looking at copyright exclusive rights (from Wiki) Several exclusive rights typically attach to the holder of a copyright: -to produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies (including, typically, electronic copies) -to import or export the work -to create .... Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. Well shit... I guess CDs are only to be had on display, it's illegal to actually re-create the sound??? It's funny. My CDs are actually for display. I buy the CDs, but then the music mysteriously just appears. As for this thread and the poll, it's stupid. It brings uncessary rage to this community. | ||
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endy
Switzerland8970 Posts
French President Sarkozy just started his campaign for the elections in April and finally opened his Twitter account. The same day, some people created alternative accounts, either to pretend being Sarkozy, either to just mock the campaign. All those accounts were shortly deleted. While I agree that the accounts claiming to be the real Sarkozy deserved to be closed, some other accounts were simply sharing funny photoshopped campaign posters and were doing nothing against TOS and still got deleted too. | ||
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Chaosvuistje
Netherlands2581 Posts
On February 21 2012 16:39 Scripted wrote: I'm looking at copyright exclusive rights (from Wiki) Several exclusive rights typically attach to the holder of a copyright: -to produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies (including, typically, electronic copies) -to import or export the work -to create .... Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. Well shit... I guess CDs are only to be had on display, it's illegal to actually re-create the sound??? The sentence behind it "and to sell those copies " is important here. It is indeed illegal to sell those things that you copied. And that's there for a good reason. But major record companies are extending that to just making copies and sharing them. There is no selling in between. Really, it would be like copying a CD and giving it to someone. Obviously gatekeepers like the MPAA wouldn't want that. Because then nobody would go buy full albums anymore because they liked one song on the radio for example. I work in the webdesign trade, which means I make websites for clients so they can use them. What stops them from just copying the HTML of a page and putting it on a server while pasting their logo on top of it? Nobody. They could do that if they want. So in essence, just creating static HTML pages is pretty much obsolete for a living. This has slowly extended out to themes, a package of files that if you paste it on a server on for example a Wordpress CMS, you can have the whole working package for maybe 30 dollars. So, from an outsiders perspective, my trade is obsolete. Except it isn't. People give services to clients. If it was just about the product then we wouldn't be here in such a large number. We have to constantly evolve our skills, expand our horizons and learn new skills just to keep up. Being a webdesigner in the 2000's was a LOT different from being a webdesigner in the 2010's. Yet, major record companies seem to have a problem updating their bussiness model. They have fought tooth and nail against the cassette recorder, spewed hellfire on CD's claiming they would kill the industry. Yet after a couple of years they all started to make them because the world evolved. Even though the market right now is in need of digital copies, they went on to create a bigger physical record ( Bluray ) and whine that it isn't selling as much. They would censor the internet just so they could sell those records for a maximum profit. Copyright laws made a lot of sense in the early days when innovation wasn't as fast. But nowadays its mostly used, primarily in the tech industry, to slow innovation down. The only thing in my eyes that should be protected by copyright are logo's and bussiness names. All the other protection should be shortened by a lot. | ||
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anycolourfloyd
Australia524 Posts
attacking it with a gigantic sledgehammer that causes collateral damage however, i am not ok with. | ||
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Azzur
Australia6259 Posts
That being said, what I am against is that some of this legislation will give govts too much power over censorship. I don't really know how the legislation is going to work but if I understand correctly, this will give someone the power to take something down without going through normal procedure (i.e. the courts). This, in effect, gives an arbitrary authority the right to be judge and jury, something which is wrong. So, anti-legislation people should argue along these lines - rationalising your stealing is frankly very stupid. Like it or not, piracy is a problem and I think that good solutions (rather than censorship) should be developed to combat it. For a real life case: In Australia, some association (movies + recording studio) sued iinet (2nd or 3rd largest ISP) to try and force iinet to police it's own internet traffic. That association wanted the power to force iinet to switch the internet off to people who they said were stealing. Iinet countered by saying that it's own infrastructure is just there and they have no control on what goes on. Also, iinet said they will gladly turn the internet off for pirates if it's proven in court (i.e. due process, not at the whim of someone). Note that iinet in no way argued that stealing is ok, artists actually benefit, etc. If they did, they would've been a laughing stock. Notice that some of the comments here are actually arguing this. | ||
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Cheeseypoofs
66 Posts
On February 21 2012 15:07 Jormundr wrote: Mixing engineer, visual artist here Please shut the fuck up about what I and the people I work with want. I am tired of hearing this line of bullshit in every copyright related thread I go into. This is record company propaganda. NOTHING MORE. There is possibly 1% of artists who could negatively be affected by sharing(read: exposure) of their material. These artists aren't affected anyway because they generally get marginal proceeds from their albums, with the lions share going to their label. And piracy isn't some new concept. Any breathing sack of flesh can realize that the RIAA and MPAA have been heralding the end of life as we know it since popular radio, since the 8 track, since the cassette, the VHS, CDs, DVDs, MP3s, Usenet, DC++, Kazaa, Limewire, Napster, Torrents, and currently FTP sites. Guess what Nothing has changed in the past 50 years. Your parents recording a popular TV show on the good ole vhs is just as illegal as it is to download a song today. The only difference is that people like you buy into this hilarious propaganda about truckers and recording engineers being terribly affected by piracy. We're not. And James Hetfield and Richard Branson aren't being affected either. The entire goal of the lifelong campaigns of the RIAA and the MPAA seek to "keep the fear" in the people. Because without that fear they would lose about a total of 10% of their market. Which is significant in that they couldn't keep their current management salaries and stay profitable. Man, you're buying into propaganda from the other side while accusing others of listening to Hollywood's. Most of the money that you claim goes into these management salaries goes into the the millions of jobs created in the production aspect of the television, cinema, and music industries. And something you choose to ignore in your post flaming the MPAA and RIAA is that though they are always worried, this is the internet. It becomes infinitely easier to steal at a large scale online. Torrenting and streaming of illegal content is much more widespread than recording an episode on a VHS. That was stealing, but it wasn't an international problem. The main issue with all this legislation is that all the stolen information is broadcast globally. And with all the lost revenue associated with ripped off television and movies, American jobs are lost and given to the man with three massive houses running megaupload.com. Seems like a good deal to me... | ||
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Hail Eris
United States20 Posts
On February 21 2012 17:10 Azzur wrote: Some of the arguments in this thread are quite ridiculous - you have people here claiming that "stealing" is ok because it's not loss sales, or that the artists themselves don't mind because it's publicity or that it makes no difference, etc. Like it or not, it's stealing and people arguing otherwise are merely justifying themselves with excuses. FFS, stop with the "stealing". Stealing and copyright infringement are not the same thing. Theft is deprivation of property. Let's consult wikipedia: Copyright holders frequently refer to copyright infringement as "theft." In copyright law, infringement does not refer to actual theft, but an instance where a person exercises one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization.[6] Courts have distinguished between copyright infringement and theft, holding, for instance, in the United States Supreme Court case Dowling v. United States (1985) that bootleg phonorecords did not constitute stolen property and that "interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright... 'an infringer of the copyright.'" In the case of copyright infringement the province guaranteed to the copyright holder by copyright law is invaded, i.e. exclusive rights, but no control, physical or otherwise, is taken over the copyright, nor is the copyright holder wholly deprived of using the copyrighted work or exercising the exclusive rights held. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#.22Theft.22 So, anti-legislation people should argue along these lines - rationalising your stealing is frankly very stupid. Like it or not, piracy is a problem and I think that good solutions (rather than censorship) should be developed to combat it. Some people might suggest that rethinking copyright law is a good solution. | ||
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Murlox
France1699 Posts
You can still claim your hatred for these acts everywhere on the Internet, your freedom of speech and expression is unaltered... I feel that the Internet regulation has been so late, laxist, (I call 2000/2010 the golden age of Internet), that young generations take it for granted; almost a "right" to have anything for free over the net. There is no such right, sadly, and it has nothing to do with freedom of speech and expression, anyway. | ||
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Azzur
Australia6259 Posts
On February 21 2012 17:34 Hail Eris wrote: FFS, stop with the "stealing". Stealing and copyright infringement are not the same thing. Theft is deprivation of property. Let's consult wikipedia: Copyright holders frequently refer to copyright infringement as "theft." In copyright law, infringement does not refer to actual theft, but an instance where a person exercises one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization.[6] Courts have distinguished between copyright infringement and theft, holding, for instance, in the United States Supreme Court case Dowling v. United States (1985) that bootleg phonorecords did not constitute stolen property and that "interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright... 'an infringer of the copyright.'" In the case of copyright infringement the province guaranteed to the copyright holder by copyright law is invaded, i.e. exclusive rights, but no control, physical or otherwise, is taken over the copyright, nor is the copyright holder wholly deprived of using the copyrighted work or exercising the exclusive rights held. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#.22Theft.22 Some people might suggest that rethinking copyright law is a good solution. I'm not going to be involved in semantics - copyright infringement is a crime, full stop. There are comments here made justifying their illegal actions, which I find ridiculous. You have no right to distribute music illegally, no matter how popular or indie a band may be. If they give you permission, go ahead! But until then, you are in the wrong. | ||
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