I suggest everybody to read the book Free Culture by the Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig. I havn’t yet finished it myself, but it raises many interesting points relevant to the discussion. It discusses piracy in different forms, property, copyright law, and so on. He is definitely not against copyright, but believes there must be changes made to the laws. So I suggest you “downloading is murder” people to read it too since it does not condone piracy, and his opinions seems quite reasonable. A few points that seem to be central to his ideas which he raised at a talk some years ago, are these:
[ul]
[li]Creativity and innovation always builds on the past.[/li][li]The past always tries to control the creativity that builds on it.[/li][li]Free societies enable the future by limiting the past.[/li][li]Ours is less and less a free society.[/li][/ul]
It starts out by describing the history of piracy and copyright, and continues from there to the present, discussing the issues and which balances are required in the system.
I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s a good read for anybody interested in copyright, intellectual property and so on.
I’ve been avoiding this thread because I pay my rent writing software, and care deeply about IP issues. But I just bougjt the complete Die Hard oeuvre on Blu-Ray, and on each fucking disk, I have to sit through TWELVE FUCKING MINUTES of advertisements because they’ve disabled the menu button. I’m downloading DRM-free torrents ASAP.
I’ve downloaded stuff for many reasons, some justifiable, some not.
Here in China, I have no way to watch, say, Heroes unless I download it. I don’t really see it as wrong. I delete it after a single viewing anyway, so if I really wanted to keep it, I’d just buy the DVD set.
On the other hand, I know that installing my friend’s copy of Adobe Photoshop on my machine is wrong, and I’m doing it for my own economic reasons and nothing else. However, when you say that “claiming to be all concerned for the humble artist” is bullshit, you’re flat wrong (at least when it comes to some of us). When I download shareware that I like, I use it for a trial period. If I like it enough, I will keep it and pay the author. For example, I’ve done it with shareware games like Escape Velocity and Avernum, because it’s individual people working on them or a small team, and not paying them seems much more direct a damage to me.
I know that they’re essentially equally wrong, but in my irrational view of things, denying the big company $1200 is a lot more palatable than denying a small software team $25. It’s the same way I view shoplifting as less asshole-ish than burglaring someone’s house. It’s about identifying the victim, and individuals make much more sympathetic victims than corporations, who can better absorb the blow of each individual act.
That’s how I justify it to myself. I don’t think I’m right; I just try to keep my wrongness below my own arbitrarily decided line.
Well shit, i guess i should have spent a little more time reading them. There were so many to pick from though i just went with the more outrageous ones.
Can you point to a case where anybody was fined by a court for downloading music that they had already purchased a license for? Can you point to a case where anybody was even sued by the RIAA for that?
Heh, something funny happened to me yesterday that I thought I’d share. I started downloading a movie yesterday, which immediately turned me into a soulless, immoral pirate. I then went to the library, happened to see the same movie available, and so checked it out. Then I came home, canceled my download, and deleted the partial download – thereby redeeming my soul and restoring my morality. I watched the movie, and was disappointed, so I’m not about to buy the movie. Which means that, had I watched my downloaded copy, the studio would not have lost a sale… but I’d still be an immoral, soulless pirate. If I burn a copy of the library’s disk, on the chance that I might one day be laid up in a hospital bed for six months with nothing better to do than watch bad movies, I’m a soulless, immoral pirate again. If I never do watch that copy, and it just sits in a DVD case until the media degrades, I guess that makes me a soulless, immoral pirate too.
And I can’t decide if I’m a soulless, immoral pirate for borrowing a shitty movie from the library instead of giving Blockbuster $4.50 for the privilege of renting a shitty movie.
Amazon says you can order from outside US, but I´ve been waiting six weeks since I ordered a couple DVDs and a book (mostly just to see what actually happens when I order), which they said would be delivered in 14-21 days. Not to mention they charge more for postage than the materials cost.
I blame Ben Franklin, for coming up with this whole “library” nonsense in the first place. If not for him, I would have borrowed the bad movie from Blockbuster instead of getting it for free from the library.
By the way, thanks for the link–I’m having a very good time reading this and I’m just snickering quietly to myself at the historical hysterical histrionic fits attendant upon each new example of “piracy,” from Hollywood to the player piano, to the record industry, to radio, to cable tv… each one of which substantially increased the revenue flow for the creators and rights holders, even though each had elements of copyright infringement, piracy and IP theft involved–which are now hallowed rights and traditions, but which at the time of their inceptions sparked very similar arguments to this very thread.
Free information facilitates and increases commerce–the only ones who object are the fossils who’ve made a tidy little nest for themselves and who bitterly resent anyone else coming up with new technology and subsequent business models that don’t fit their world view. Tough shit, motherfuckers, enjoy that tar pit!
Shit, you got me! No I can’t cite a retailer able to deliver in such a manor [sic]. Pirates are now no longer disgusting, thieving, criminal, slugs, all because some guy on the Internet couldn’t point to one out of the hundred million billion online retailers that can deliver to an undisclosed location.
No; it’s because the ruthlessness and destructiveness and generally predatory behavior of people like the RIAA have convinced a great many people that the “disgusting” pirates have the moral high ground, and are more trustworthy and provide a better product to boot. The real vermin are people like the RIAA and DRM makers and their supporters; the ones who think that consumers have no rights and should be treated as criminals regardless of how they behave.
How can we forget the halcyon days before DRM and RIAA lawsuits where there were no pirates? Truly, the RIAA managed to magic thousands of IP violation lawsuits out of thin air; only then did the piracy problem emerge! Obviously, the vast majority of pirates are truly, truly aggrieved by the actions of the RIAA (although, strangely, I suspect they won’t restrain their thieving so it only affects record companies represented by the RIAA) and not simply wanting something for nothing. Yeah, that’ll be it.
And what makes you think that the people who hate them are all, or even mostly “pirates” ? DRM especially is notorious for ONLY hurting non-pirates.
And “pirate” or not, suing someone for hundreds of thousands of dollars for “stealing” a few dollars worth of music is ridiculous. And don’t bother with any speeches about how they are defending the artists; the RIAA keeps all that money itself.
And while it wasn’t “halcyon days” before the RIAA and DRM, it was better than now, because they are much worse than the pirates.
How the fuck do you work that out, Einstein? A group protects what’s theirs through the courts and now they’re worse than the scum they’re prosecuting?
The overwhelming majority of pirates don’t give two shits about the actions of the RIAA or about DRM, mostly because about .00000002% of the population understands or cares what a “rootkit” or “digital rights management” is. This idea that mass piracy is some sort of protest movement against the “the man” is a fantasy. People pirate because they can get away with obtaining music for nothing, not because they’re concerned about DRM, rootkits or whatever the current cause celebre of the Internet idiot is today.