Today's Piracy report

[Gindil]

Permission culture does NOT lead to financial success

Any time someone uses a single word to describe our culture, I can only think of how they simplistically generalize everyone and everything. You haven't even defined what a permission culture is, so I have very little motivation to take that claim seriously.

It's been what you've been describing for the entire time we've had this argument. You've said that we have to ask for permission from copyright holders and authors when that impedes on any type of innovation or success in derivative works or transformative works. If I have to ask for permission for a satire of a work, then that has to be the dumbest thing I've heard. Especially when Charles Dickens was known for exactly such satire with the debt prisons in the last century. Or if I want to make a remix for a song, somehow I should ask permission of the label in charge of it. Let me make this clear right here, and I'm bolding it for emphasis:

The creative process comes independently of the need to ask permission for using digital media.

Or how about asking for permission for fan games in general? They happen and it's a legal grey area, but you've benefited with the outcrop of Mother 3 or even Shining Force. We have people that continue to propagate old games, such as Sonic 2 HD and even fan games of Pokemon as an MMO.

The three members of the Crimson Echoes team weren't trying to be successful.

Did they own the Chrono series? No.

Square decided to force them to cancel their project because they were planning on releasing later games, namely Chrono Trigger for the DS. A really bad sequel can ruin a franchise, and if they had made the game horrendously bad, or changed the cannon, the least of Square's problems would have been possible problems with brand recognition, and at worst the re-release would have failed completely. Are those scenarios likely? Probably not, but it wasn't up to the Crimson Echo's team to decide.

And now, the more authoritarian side comes out... Especially when a fan project rarely comes out to great fanfare (except for the recent Starcraft II MMO mod... But that's another story)

Did this hurt Square's sales on a game that they have yet to update (in this case Chrono Cross)

Who knows. There are no data to support either side, so your question is at best rhetorical.

Hmmm... People are still expressing discontent about Square about Crimson Echoes, FFXIV tanked, and Square needs money [http://news.bigdownload.com/2011/02/03/square-enix-records-lower-profits-in-latest-financial-report/]. Personal belief is that less people are enjoying the products of Square for various reasons along with their strong enforcement takedowns.

Add to that the fact that Crimson Echoes quietly came out recently and no one noticed...

Did their copyright infringement need to be litigated away?

Depends if the cease and desist letter didn?t work. If the team continued anyways, then yes litigation was the only outcome.

You didn't see the link where I showed it came out by a different team. The C&D is officially useless since the finished product is done.

It was far easier to just destroy their work, posting it on Youtube to show what could have been.

It wasn't really their work, was it? They didn't make the sprites, or program the code much. They didn't make the original game, or come up with the original concept. They had no stake in the success or failure of the Chrono series, but Square did. It seems the only thing the Crimson Echoes team did was take the work of someone else and do whatever they wanted to with it. Granted they had good intentions, but regardless, they basically stole and used someone's property without permission for their own success.

BS. They started with a rom-hack but that isn't where it ended. Obviously, you don't know how to set tiles, insert custom music, or create a script which is their work. Given that the Youtube account has 90 vids, a LOT of work went into the script, which actually added a lot of story and made CC a lot easier to comprehend. The main thing they did do was use the ground work of Chrono Trigger and its story. You also fail to notice the difference between the rom patch and an IPS, which is how it would have been released. All you see is the black and white of the law, ignoring the impact that it would have had on the field, which was basically none. At least on this case, they stole nothing and added value to the work. NOTHING was "stolen", especially when you can't be bothered to read what exactly they did.

Those are far better questions of an author destroying lives by a long legal court battle over economics.

But pirates can just as easily destroy the lives of the author, writer, musician, and movie crew. You say you don't want power in one person, but the alternative is to have the majority overpower the minority. So what is the solution? The best answer is a society where nobody has power over anyone; that everyone can live freely by their wish, as long as it doesn?t hurt others. If you agree with that statement, then you disagree with your own argument, because pirates prevent creators from living freely. Deciding to keep my work to myself does not hurt anyone at all. I do no harm to them. Opening my work to the world can benefit people, but there is a difference between harming someone, and not benefitting them. The former is negative force, the latter is neutral.

You still fail to say anything about how any of these people are having their lives destroyed based on piracy, and still insist that piracy is the mark of the devil. It's a decentralized network. In all of this time, I have not seen you pull anything but a moralistic view, trying to say that somehow the paradigm shift of either freemium or free to sell other things in the digital era is not flawed, it's giving money to the artists to take advantage... Whether a work is shared on Usenet, Bittorrent, or uploaded to a private server, what harm other than your insistent belief that I've somehow cost the artist money I may or may not spend is hurting the artist?

I've shown you people making movies on cheaper budgets - Kevin Smith
I've show you writers who were adamant that piracy costed them money - Neil Gaiman
I've shown you musicians who realize that piracy is advertising - 50 Cent, Joss Stone, Jamendo.com's website, Radiohead, and Nine Inch Nails.
I've shown businesses that give away free downloads but still provide a great service that the US can't get because of record labels wanting to do away with the "freemium" model before it catches hold in the US.

If you want to ignore all of the evidence of artists trying new things and keeping away from copyright, be my guest. But if all you're doing is ignoring every last link because it doesn't correspond to your view that hey, digital goods gives other opportunities to people, I can't help. I don't aspire to the moralistic view that downloading songs or movies is somehow wrong because a copyright holder impedes on what I do. If anything it inspires me to find other people that agree. I will continue to support Nina Paley and Sita Sings the Blues, even though I watch it free on Youtube. I will continue to support Sintel and the Durian Open Movie Project with donations. If someone wants to say a download is wrong because of copyright reasons, it's just going to annoy me and help me find another artist.

Finally, the entire "artist need to be paid" paradigm, you want to tote. No, they create for other incentives than profit, which you seem not to even respond to.

If I had to ask permission to use either orcs, it would truly cause the numbers of books on the subject to decrease considerably.

Or, you could create your own concept and add to the pool of knowledge. How are you making a new idea when you take the ideas of others? Your stance appears hypocritical: you say you want to use the ideas of others to enrich society, but you don't actually come up with any new ideas to enrich society.

...

Run that entire thing by me again, with everything I said please? I could swear I put something about Warhammer 40K, a VERY SUCCESSFUL franchise based on Tolkien's work, has orcs in another fantasy setting... Please look at my original sentence and tell me how new ideas are not based off anything old.

Rebuttal

Notch's personal opinion is not a real good rebuttal?

Frogboy is a developer. Notch is only one part of the rebuttal.

I rail against copyright being used as a hammer with the consumer being the anvil

So you blame the hammer, and not the person driving the hammer.

Someone wants to be a Luddite, that's their choice. Piracy has never been a problem, using law and litigation to solve everything has.

the enforcement angle is like fighting terrorism...

And how does copyright law actually enforce anything? Copyright law is a concept, and it's not a physical person. The things you really don't like are people using copyright law to their fullest extent, yet you don't address that. You should be blaming the arm for swinging the hammer, as the hammer itself is just a hammer, and cannot swing on its own. How about you blame the government who created the corporations? How about you blame the government for making special copyright laws for them? Well, in a small way I guess you have, but yet within your minute and specific condemnation of those institutions you throw out the principle of copyright law with them. It would be the same as disregarding all traffic laws because there are laws that the government enforces too harshly.

First, the full extent of copyright law is usurped. We agree on that. We should also agree that things such as the DMCA try their very best to usurp the fair use rights of people. Since it's one of the most recent major shifts in law, I'll try to keep to just DMCA laws. If the law was lessened on infringement, I might not have a problem. But the thing is, those laws impede on a lot. You can't get mad at a corporation for wanting to make filming 2 minutes of a movie punishable by jail time, a law. The root of the problem comes from why are they incentivized to pass such laws in the first place. Just as copyright law stopped Crimson Echoes, it also stops others from supposedly sharing media, for what purpose? There's a misguided conception that control of a media = maximum profit. It's something that hasn't happened in the years of business, nor will it ever happened. Sony should have learned when they released the MiniDisk. Now they're trying to take over your PS3 remotely because it got hacked. They used the DMCA, and I can see a lot of people getting away from Sony's products since they're doing more harm to themselves.

Also, the DMCA was made during Bill Clinton's era and was lobbied for by the RIAA. Every business organization has used it for various reasons. I've also shown how litigious it has gotten in the music world, where people have finally found alternatives to the old music industry business model. That's innovation. I still don't like every last part of CC licensing and I have shown a heckuva lot more on this to say that copyright litigation isn't the best way to win friends and influence people. We now have no public domain works being released because copyright is so long. Mickey Mouse should be open to everyone. Along with people being able to use the works of Ernest Hemingway in a compilation. In every last example, I've tried to show the immediate harm that copyright law impedes upon while you've actually tried to dismiss these as irrelevant.

As I've said before, I'm really strong on consumer rights. As an author myself, I've seen that copyright isn't the route I want to go. As evidenced by the likes of Penny Arcade, xkcd, Order of the Stick, and all of the other webcomics out there, I can make money without ever having people worry about copyright issues. I just see it used as an unnecessary tax to the system for all involved.

Jay-Z and the Beatles never met, but they had a baby together:

The result?

Link [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grey_Album]

Grey Tuesday
Grey Tuesday was a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience on February 24, 2004. Led by Downhill Battle, an activist group seeking to restructure the music industry, participating websites posted copies of Danger Mouse's The Grey Album for free download on its sites for 24 hours in protest of EMI's attempts to prevent any distribution of this unlicensed work. This protest was provoked by the opinion that the sampling is fair use and that a statutory license should be provided in the same manner as if a song had been covered.

And yet, it made them money. It also enhanced the career of all involved. Jay-Z didn't need to be more famous, the label didn't need people looking at the newest single of Jay-Z (at the time) and seeing a transformative use. And DJ Danger Mouse is awesome.

Finally, the absolute last thing you constantly ignore is how society has become one of transformative use of everything that can be done without copyright law impeding those uses.

Observe:


Infringing? Yep. Fair use? Again, yep. Funny as all hell? Hell yes!

Don't forget the DJs who sample songs all the time, the coffee shops that play music of various types, and every last person that can find new uses for songs and literature, other than monetary profit. All are pirates? That's a lot of people to lock up.

It takes more time to take down the greedy people than it does to watch others

That is simply an excuse used as a justification. The energy and time it takes to "catch" a pirate has no bearing on piracy's legitimacy.

Riaa lobbied $90 million for special laws regarding DMCA [http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2011/01/06/special-report-music-industrys-lavish-lobby-campaign-for-digital-rights/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter], For all of their legal maneuverings, they spent $16mil on litigation for a total of $391,000 [http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2010/07/ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-riaa-paid-its-lawyers.html]
These are special laws to say that every part of so called piracy (declaring Napster illegal, suing people for downloading music, litigation in Limewire...) is targeted. This also plays into the sentiment that somehow downloading a song cost an artist millions of dollars. It's not a justification to know that when the laws change, public sentiment can change along with it. But as I said before, you can watch what's going on, see the signs and make money in different ways or complain that piracy costs jobs. It's like trying to fight the automobile against a horse and buggy.

Give them less of a reason and they'll buy from you.

I don't know how many times I have to say it until it sinks in, but I'll say it again. It doesn?t matter. It makes no difference on a person's personal choice how to be successful with their creation. You keep showing me alternative business models and calling it evidence, when everything you've said about business models has nothing to do whatsoever with the ethics of pirating. You've put so much energy into this non sequitur. You legitimize the power of the pirates to manipulate anything that's created instead of allowing the person that actually creates it to control their own livelihood. Pirates have no stake in the success or failure, so they should get no say in the process. Creators should never be in competition with themselves, and pirates cause that conflict of interest.

We'll agree to disagree. Piracy's here. I'm not here for an ethics debate because in economics, the market doesn't care. The pirates are people who do things in their best interest, and you fail to show artists that have gone down because of piracy. Moral convictions are great. But they don't put food on the table for art.

The biggest non sequitar with your argument is how much you've put into personal property = copyright and I've had to drill that in where they're not the same thing. Pirates have their own personal freedoms and you seem to think that artists should have a say in every detail of what they create. That hasn't been the case. If a caveman writes on a wall, every other one behind him understand which way to go to follow the herd. If Pablo Picasso was penniless when he died, who benefited from his work afterwards? If Neil Gaiman has recognized that people will share a work regardless of the DRM or his demands for compensation from everyone else...

If Marvel can't stop 4chan from using parts of Deadpool comics...

If after 10 years of DMCA law, I can still find clips of Toy Story 1, 2, and 3 online to see if I want to buy the DVD...

Why in the world, does my belief that piracy, is something other than people sharing information, impede on "The progress of the Arts and Sciences? [http://www.conservapedia.com/Copyright_Clause]"

We have the tools. We can make it faster.

We have the knowledge. We can make it better. *obvious spoof is obvious*

If the artists get paid in other ways, piracy doesn't matter because in the end, everyone benefits. So if all you have is that scarcity mindset saying "But piracy---" then hey, feel free to express it. I'm just showing that the ones that do the work are getting the profit from it. And more and more, copyright isn't leading the way for artists. New ways of doing business is what's changing everything. I've said that copyright law is very limiting in what it can do. You still haven't shown any evidence to the contrary than your own beliefs and trying to dismiss mine as irrelevant because it doesn't correspond with yours. Copyright law has become very harmful to consumers and competitors. These don't really have much to do with piracy, but if an artist doesn't want to do it themselves, they can't slack off. Last I checked we had "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Didn't think it read "Life, liberty, and pursuit of copyright handout"

1 - If all the "sue em all" lawsuits have proven, creator confidence in something not being pirated is a false incentive.

Not at all. Creator confidence also has to do with fears of theft, not just piracy. Suing someone has no basis on their confidence if the creator thinks the accused broke the law. And let's be honest here, it's not the creators doing the suing, it's the publisher/movie studio/record label. Creators need to know that they will be protected if someone tries to plagiarize or profit off their work without supporting them, and copyright provides that protection. Copyright allows the creator to directly control their success and it therefore establishes the means for them to earn their livelihood.

Ya know... This worries me because Congress is also considering a fashion copyright...

A lot of smaller artists don't want it because it would impede on innovation. And the ones that are larger? They're the ones infringing.

2 - ... Have we not discussed the litigation route being incredibly flawed

And yet you try to connect it with copyright law. The law is simply a tool for people to use. If you don't like how people use the law, then make an argument that the people are wrong, or that the tool is too powerful. As it stands, you reject the tool outright. It's a very simplistic position you hold.

If it's a tool that is abused, it either needs to be lessened considerably (hence 5 year copyright) or taken away. No person should absolutely destroy another's well being because they want to make a financial profit through the judicial system. Innovation is harmed because of not only corporate irresponsibly, but individual ignorance of the harms of the smaller system.

And you still ignore the statutory damages...

Link [http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#504]

§ 504. Remedies for infringement: Damages and profits

(c) Statutory Damages. ?

(1) Except as provided by clause (2) of this subsection, the copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just. For the purposes of this subsection, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work.

Now look at that and tell me...

Would you go for actual damages (which is difficult to prove) or statutory damages? That's PER infringement. So basically a jury isn't thinking about how to find a just amount for the total. But you have to make an amount based on every last infringement. This is to set an example. That's the only reason, and yet it continues to show how out of whack copyright law is to what's needed in the digital age. If anything, Spain has some decent laws (after voting against a proposal that would have changed them to a US stance), Germany is strict on copyright law (third party liability is heavily enforced there) and Brazil needs help in figuring out how to make the legal market better once again.

Once it's distributed, you can find other ways to make money flow.

And if I break you leg, there are plenty of other ways to get around. Like I said, that is a non sequitur. The choices a creator has are independent of the ethics of pirating. The issue here is that pirates take away choice, imposing their will on the creator's fundamental human rights, so therefore piracy is wrong. It also causes a conflict of interest in which the creator must compete with their own creation and not just the creations of others.

*taps finger on desk*

So let's get this straight. Even though, by law, I can record small clips of a movie and post them on Youtube, I'm a pirate. Even though I like a song, I can't share it on Grooveshark. Even though I like Pioneer One, I can't share it with the world on Bittorrent because I'm a pirate for distributing materials in various ways.

I wonder if I'm the one that has a simplistic view... You seem to be begging the question that because an author loses a right to distribute, somehow piracy is wrong on all levels. You fail to notice the transformative uses of media, or any of the reasons that people may pirate (too expensive, not available in their area, small clips, gather interest, social events, etc) All you seem to effectively say is "Distributing media in an unauthorized manner goes against the author, so therefore it's wrong for all to do." That's far more imposing and authoritative than the belief that people can distribute, benefiting all. Oh, and because everyone benefits, that's chaos in the system, which can't be tolerated. The problem is, there's nothing backing up your view except your beliefs. If it's the same as Geek's on the second page, that's a morally depraved argument. What he believed is that the law is correct no matter the consequences. I can't agree that the laws made are just. If I can't, then I know that they have to be changed so that a person's personal freedoms are given and we can actually allow more innovation.

If Shakespeare is supposedly not relevant, yet Beowulf is, there's an issue.

It's not that Shakespeare isn't relevant, it's that the argument you use with Shakespeare as an example is simply wrong. Had someone changed Shakespeare's writing over the course of time, it would be less valued because of the editions. The same argument can be applied to Beowulf. Looking back at the Epic of Gilgamesh, the reason why it is so prized is because it has remained intact and uncorrupt for so long. Do you think the world's oldest story would be so valuable if it had been changed along the way? To some people it would be a problem. If one wanted to chronicle life in the 1920's in an element of fiction, don?t you think they have the right to prevent people from making spinoffs or sequels decades, even centuries into the future in order to keep their work pure and uncorrupted by cultural revisionism? Perhaps they wanted to have their work untouched by subsequent authors because their characters were members of their own family, or the plot was based on their own life's events. To say they cannot have their right because it benefits society means that you are sacrificing the rights of one for the good of many. The way to innovate past this is to allow other creators to make their own work. As long as others are still allowed to create new ideas, progress will not be stifled.[/quote]

Did you miss my part of my original Shakespeare argument, discussing how King Lear WAS changed and given a happy ending even though that wasn't Shakespeare's original intent? It's a sad tale. People couldn't take the ending. Nahum Tate changed it and yet we still remember Shakespeare's original that it's based off of. The entire reason I brought up Shakespeare in the first place was because of the fact that his tales are still being used in this day and age, continue to have relevance, even though people change his works in various ways.

If I wanted to bring up a more recent example, here's two:
Wicked [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_(musical)] and The True story of the 3 little pigs [http://www.amazon.com/True-Story-Three-Little-Pigs/dp/0140544518]

I really insist you learn about derivative works and transformative use. You seem to think that everything has to be uniquely original when there's far more proof that all types of media have to have a basis from works that came before.

Beowulf was about adding to the story and putting your own parts to the epic tale of a warrior king.

That is simply not correct. The story could have been derived from many works, but the completed manuscript has remained unedited over the years, and that is partially the reason why it is so valued.

Beowulf was a bard's tale, that the Olde Christian Church wrote down. Yes, it's still on lambskin, but imagine a folk tale, told around a common-house to bread and wine about the values of ancient Viking society. I wasn't talking about the written manuscript, I was referring to the people of the 8th and 11th century that turned it into an epic poem through constant retelling of the story.

Yet, with every link, I show artists that see it in different ways.

Yet that doesn?t make your point valid. Also what proportion are these artists compared to the whole? I can link you to "scientists" who think Jesus rode a velociraptor, yet they are a tiny minority. Just because you can link to a handful of artists doesn?t mean the majority take that route. It doesn?t matter what route the artists choose or how many choose it because my point is that it should only be their choice. Only the artist should get to choose to give away their stuff for free. The pirate shouldn't.

Moral imperative isn't changing more people to stop sharing media.

And, after finding out the reasons to gain from copyright such as the Performance Rights Organizations, the Copyright Boards, the mechanical rights accrued, and all the ways that copyright is used to nickel and dime artists and consumer alike, it's a bloated thing that needs a massive overhaul from the monster it is today.

And that I can agree with you. My argument has only been on the principals of copyright, in that it gives protection and freedom to the creator. Now how much protection that amounts to is certainly up for debate, but you don't seem interested in even entertaining the ideas of copyright's benefits. That is a very simplistic perspective.

So is the idea of everyone is a pirate until proven otherwise. The principles of copyright is to "progress the Arts and Sciences" as said in the copyright clause. By all fundamental definition of that clause, copyright and patent law impede on this in the digital era. I'm not particularly interested in suing my fanbase, and they come to me for something other than a nasty letter saying they need to pay $750 for infringing on my copyright. Freedom? James Watt (patent law) didn't have freedom with his patent. He was constantly litigating people for making incremental improvements on the steam engine (even if they did research independently). And with copyright law, we have various corporations litigating that cause a chilling effect rather than be better than what a pirate offers. Smaller artists don't even use copyright (which IMO is a major reason to see where the issues lie) for their works and yet, because the ideals sound good, that makes good protection?

The moral issue comes down to fundamentals of liberty and human rights. I bring those up because it turns the somewhat moral gray area of piracy into a specific answer: that it is wrong. The freedom to distribute rests with the person who seeks to gain from their work and risks to lose from their work. The pirate is not entitled to that right because they did not create it and have no stake in success, but not only that, the pirate also takes that right away from the original creator by force.

Liberty of information sounds pretty good. And if anything copyright impedes on other human rights. So now you've just asked for liberty for one, not liberty for all. Liberty for all means they can distribute regardless. That sure as certain works for Google for the News. I can still get it from the Washington post and New York Times. But if they want to take their news off of Google, they can. It's just going to hurt them in the end, not Google. I'm truly failing to see how one person's needs for an economic profit that isn't secured impede on all other rights. I may never see it the same way you do, especially with all of the research that says otherwise. The moral imperative doesn't do it for me...

If one person didn't do it, someone else would.

That is hardly a good justification.

That's called innovation. Or better yet, "don't coast to keep yourself relevant in a fast moving digital society" *thumbs up*

I fail to see how a dissonance in values = less opportunities for an author that takes advantage of it.

It's not that pirates have bad values. When one talks about ethics, they don't talk about the content of the person's character, but the specifics of their actions. A bad person can do something good, and something good can be harmful. As I said before, we live in a free society that protects the rights of individuals. People who create something own it, and they have the freedom to release it as they please. Pirates who take work and submit it to torrent sites or release it to the internet break that freedom by choosing for someone else without their consent. What you call permission culture is actually human rights. Outside of my own choices I cannot force someone to do something they don't want, no matter how harmful, beneficial, or mundane. That is the basic ethical principal of the free world. Pirates who distribute work break that principal, so the ethics of their actions are clear.

...

...

*shocked speechless*

*5 minutes later*

Since I already talked about permission culture above, I won't go back into it here. I'll just respectfully disagree. There's so many examples of people aggregating information that you seem to ignore here, all in the name of putting editors, authors, and innovators on an invisible pedestal, ignoring the other parts of society that innovate and use those stepping stones of work in various and unique ways.

Copyright laws are NOT personal property protection.

Okay, I concede that. But they are privileges under the law for a creator, and therefore owner of the work to secure their livelihood through any method of distribution they choose. As I said, because the creator of something owns it as property, and because their livelihood depends on their ability to profit from it, such rights of distribution are solely given to them. Anyone who distributes the author's work without their consent is infringing on their ability to secure their own livelihood.

So before, you're saying copyright has no claws, and yet here, you're looking to say that it's used to secure their income through economic manipulation.

I'm strong on consumer choice in how they obtain their media.

Consumers get to use the things they buy however they want, except for distribution, because that impacts the creator?s wellbeing. The consumer doesn?t profit from distribution anyways, so there is no financial justification for them doing it. To put the consumer's freedom above the freedom of the creator means you are giving control to the masses, which can cause undesirable effects on the creator.

I say the consumer is king/queen for a reason. Any producer has to find ways to convince a consumer to let go of money to their goods and services. If I go to a hotel, they cater to me for money. If I offer a book, movie, etc., I damn sure better make it a pleasant experience for them.

What you've just described is to have all that taken away because I offer someone something, I magically have control of what they can do. Yet, you haven't said HOW consumer choices or "control to the masses" is undesirable on society as a whole.

Ex. Let's go to the 90s. Universal is on top of the world DVDs from America are decent but not all around good. Enter the demand for foreign movies such as Memoirs of a Geisha, The Last Samurai and Oldboy (only an example). We now have demand from other sources, which causes more people to translate and discuss these movies. Consumer choice is increased, and overall, everyone is better off, save the American creators and monopolists. They have a few options to fight this. One, make better movies. Two, cry in a corner and point fingers. Three, do nothing.

I wonder what two sounds like...

Regardless, the entire focus on copyright disregards the actual need for businesses to compete against each other, making consumers well off. If the copyright artist wants a consumer's money, they HAVE to compete with themselves and a world market. I can't change this, though you seem to blame the pirates for a lot of things that could be controlled by A) working to outcompete piracy B)pushing to outinnovate yourself and C)striving to find new ways to make consumers like you more than piracy. Hence, a focus on economics, not morality.

I don't want to limit the technology because someone else decries its bad.

I never said the technology was bad. Torrents are just tools. It only becomes a problem when media is shared without direction of the creator. If the creator decides to release it on a torrent site for free, then there is no problem.

You're bemoaning a pirate for putting up a torrent because it's not authorized. Last I checked, in the 80s there were unofficial books on various topics. I'll point to game books that I picked up in EBGames. There was the official guide for $40 with all the trimmings on it. Then the Unofficial guide that was $20. Which do you think I picked up? Consider it an unofficial source, and find a way to make your product better. That's far better than suing the pants off everyone because someone downloaded your movie [http://torrentfreak.com/makers-of-the-expendables-sue-6500-bittorrent-users-110208/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20Torrentfreak%20(Torrentfreak)] and you can't prove economic damages

But decrying that somehow, the author needs to be protected from me and what I want to do is ridiculous.

If you were the author, you would be protected too. The only time you get to apply the law however you see fit is when you're in the position to where the law protects you. You want to allow freedom, great, you want to own everything about your creation, you can. Others cannot override your decision, and the law grants you protection from that.

You keep saying I'm protected. What is needing protection from economic damages? People choose what they choose. If you want an income, great, but it's not guaranteed through copyright law, your business model, Santa Claus, or anything else. If someone wants to lock up horseback riding and a certain style, a judge would laugh at them as he throws out the case. If you want to see someone copyrighting everything, there is literally a push to copyright yoga moves...

I would want the system to have better defenses against abuse and the best way for that is shorter limits.

[The Founders] had words:

Their words only talked about ideas; copyright doesn't apply to ideas.

Their words extend to monopolies and the idea thing as Jefferson said, is what copyright law is trying to limit nowadays.

I'm actually showing that artists don't necessarily need it in the manner currently being used.

Of course they don't specifically *need* to go down those routes, but anyone can choose them. What we have is a problem of choice here: pirates usurp the choice of creators.

You insist, but just because Pirate Bay exists doesn't mean the artist has lost their ability to make money. We've already talked about distribution, now you're just saying pirates are to blame for everything.

Same problem occurs, if the book is too expensive to import, I find another source that's cheaper.

It's important to remember the extent of mercantilism in England at the time. It seems the problem wasn't the ideas that were restrained, but the monopolies and business cartels that kept the prices up. The difference between the past and our current state is that those books were reduced to a cheaper price not given away for free, and it is not known what kind of privileges the creator had in distributing their work. Now we can distribute information without restraint of businesses, where as it was a problem at the time. The current problem is that the decision to distribute is not being kept with the creator, but by a third party. But I ask you this, do you know how many new works were being created in the other countries at the time? The figures I read dealt with the number of books, not the content of said books. How do you know any new ideas were being spread at all? You?re also taking a LOT for granted here.[/quote]

A little weak on the 1700s but America wasn't necessarily formed, but coming about because of England's Civil War. But we first have copying far easier than in the 1600s naturally. The end of the 1700s meant people were watching news about the US Revolution, the foment and unrest with the King meant a lot of upheaval, pamphlets and such ensuing unrest. This was a great time to learn about these goings on as quickly as possible. I'm sure the end was all about the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and other either religious or national texts regarding the new country and Britain's defeat.

Honestly, you just have to look at what came next for both Britain and Germany. Mozart, Beethoven in Germany during the era, there was a larger push for Enlightenment.

IIRC, Britain lost the Americas, and was far too imposing. I can't quite remember when Milton was prominent with his books but I know that had a great influence on our founding fathers. The main gist was for the sharing of ideas such as Thomas Paine's Common Sense among other books that provoked thought.

Er... If I have a book of Tale of Two Cities and a friend wants to see it, I'm not going to go and ask Charles Dickens for permission, nor his estate.

Copyright doesn't address that, so you don't have a problem there. If you were to copy the pages and send it to him over the internet instead of mailing him the book then it would technically be a problem. Understand what copyright doesn't protect: ideas, resale, personal modification, etc. Copyright protects the right to copy. Huh, now I wonder where they got the name from?

I used Dickens as an example. Change that to Salinger and that's the problem of copyright law impeding on what people can do and the law being slow in catching up to what people can do with technology.

Whether these rules apply to these small examples or me making a pdf of a book and posting online, it's a decision that people make. All people can do is use it wisely.

This goes back to the tragedy of the commons. People are unwilling to take care of someone else's property as well as they take care of their own. Someone will be much more selective of how they distribute their own work as opposed to someone else's work.

And society loses how...?
The author has more potential reasons... Because...?
Ethics can't answer this because nothing is lost...?

Individual artists should have choice but all of the good points of getting your name out far exceed any moral imperative to "control your work".

And that should be left up to the artist, not a third party.

Aspects of the free market can do the job that pirates do and do it in an ethical manner. Creators who innovate and keep their works open will do better than creators who restrict and keep their works closed. The problem with pirates is that they usurp the principles of the free market and manipulate the system they have no stake in. I have to refine my definition a little further. People who take things that are already online are defined as pirates, but I think they are just a symptom of the market, and I would probably call them "prospectors". If someone goes into a deli, takes a plate of sandwiches, and gives them out in the park, the people who take those sandwiches I see as not (entirely) ethically responsible. If they are told the sandwiches are stolen, they can opt out, or they can take the free meal. The real "pirates" are the ones I see who distribute the works in the first place, and the statement that "if A doesn't do it, B through Z will" is not justification. Regardless of how many would do it, it is still wrong.

And your entire view hinges on just an author being allowed in a free market, irregardless of the consequences. You rail on the system for being more efficient than what the artist can do themselves. Society benefits and yet you want to complain because people now have more choices and the artist has to compete in new ways to keep their work relevant. You hinge on the moral argument because you can't accept the fact that people use the art for various ways other than what you view as piracy.

Tell you what, let's say I wanted to use an excerpt from Iron Man 2's trailer for a video. I've seen the movie already but don't own it on DVD, and might not have planned to buy it. I look at Universal's website and they don't offer a Bittorrent of the trailer. Maybe, just maybe, I'm planning to get it and download a torrent so I can use it in a way that transforms it to my use. I want to make a video. I have the resources and knowledge.... *10 hours later, PROFIT*


If I have to ask permission from all people to use different media sources, that comes from a really messed up view of the world. No, I sure wouldn't ask if it's alright to make a remix of a video game song. No, I sure as certain wouldn't ask if I can has cheeseburger. I would not ask to use an image of Deadpool just to show how funny the comics are. Yes, I will find another source to watch a trailer on Tron 3, if it ever comes out, and Youtube decides to take it down. No, I am not going to ask the permission of a corporation to use resources such as sprites from 10 year old games, music from 20 year veterans of the industry, or excerpts from a movie I legally bought. They want money, they compete. Ethics do not matter on this, and you continue to fail to show why it's wrong other than your own moral imperative to say the authors are sancrosanct in their decisions, ignoring all ways that artists rights do NOT trump consumer rights, ignoring alternative culture of the various industries involved, and doing nothing more than trying to find fault with an economic system that impedes on multiple levels far more than the false benefits it gives (such as "security", which STILL hasn't been explained when people can use all tools involved to make their own choices)

The degree of the creator's defense against the pirates can be discussed, and you?re right that the most violent and oppressive defenses are violating rights on their own. But note that these are defenses, and they would not occur in a voluntary economic system. Competition does not get taken to court if that competition makes a better product. Pirates however cause competition within the same product. If I make A, and my competitor makes B (something similar to A), the two things can compete in the open market. However if I make A, and a pirate takes A, and 'sells' it for free, I am now competing with my own creation. That causes a conflict of interest in the creative process, since a creator is forced against their will to compete against themselves. Not only that, but the pirate fixes the price without the creator's permission. The pirate violates almost every aspect of the voluntary economic system in which agreements are made between two or more willing parties. The pirate makes their decision without acknowledging the will of the creative party, and that is wrong regardless of their means, regardless of their motive, and regardless of the outcome. It is wrong not just on a moral issue because it tramples on human rights, but it is also wrong as an economic issue because an outside party is manipulating a completely voluntary economic system without anyone actually volunteering.

...

Are you, or are you not trying to say exactly what I have detailed out for the last 5 posts? The author HAS to outcompete themselves. I can't say it much better... It's as if you grasp the concept but you're holding on for dear life to the belief that somehow copyright MUST be right when it's proven wrong. If society benefits, the ethics does not matter in this regard. The artist is NOT physically harmed, they're not emotionally harmed, and they are not economically harmed. They have to find different ways to differentiate themselves to the myriad of artists out there. Come off mean, people leave. Come off as a wuss, it better be a marketing gimmick. All you have to do is change that pirate into a person and find a way to make them pay for a different scarce good rather than the economically abundant good.

By the GODS... Look, we aren't limited to CDs, 8tracks, cassettes for the enjoyment of media. I can play a song on various cloud services such as Grooveshark and Spotify without paying the artist one dime. A and B have to compete to make money from me. That has always been the case. How they do it, other than taking my credit card and forcefully using it for a purchase under duress, is by enticing me to work with them and meet them. We agree on the price in various ways. If too high, I go to a competitor (yes, a pirate is a competitor. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2653-Piracy] If they offer something for free, great. But if they show that there's a reason to pay more by offering something else all the more enticing that's a scarce good (Statue, plaque, themselves at a concert) that's a helluva lot more valuable than someone suing for a damned song. That goes a lot better than saying "oh hey, piracy is wrong, ya know?" In ALL of this, all you've done is assert a moral view that does nothing but try to guilt people into not sharing. So what if the author doesn't agree? The moralism has been the Wrong. Question. at the end of the day. This entire paragraph proved exactly my points that I've been making since the beginning:

1) Artist has to outcompete themselves in all industries
2) Permission has nothing to do with the creative process, it's a courtesy, but who needs it? No true competitor ever asked the permission of those already in the field to try to make money their own way.
3) A voluntary system does not ensure your success. It doesn't matter how you achieve it. But if you go for that success, it can be in a number of choices you make. Basically, the market doesn't care how you're successful. Just so long as you do it. But all of this doesn't mean that artists and authors can't compete. They just have to keep reinventing themselves, their stories, and never settle for their one-time success, as a free market should work.

In regards to my assertion of confirmation bias, I think it holds a kernel of truth. All the links you've sent me (not very objective sources mind you) have spun the issue one way. I have not seen an objective analysis in your responses. It doesn?t matter how many years you?ve looked at cases of copyright abuse; if you cannot pick costs and benefits of the system as individual aspects, and prefer to simply dismiss the system altogether, then it shows me that you are simplistically absolute in your judgment.

I should say the same for you. You've sent nothing to prove your own ideals other than "trust me because the moral argument is the right one".

The issue isn't spun, I just don't like the abuse of the system and how it's gamed to basically destroy people through various means. If you like a song, the police shouldn't be able to raid your computer because you downloaded it to no financial gain. Napster shouldn't have had to go bankrupt the first time because the users wanted a new way to find music. The laws regarding inducement, that expose the CEOs of filesharing companies far more than other forms of business, have a strong negative affect on that form of legal business and how they can cater to customers.

As I've said and I'll assert. The system and its damages need changing. The length needs to be shortened considerably. In order to see more innovative uses of Youtube and other filesharing sources, copyright needs to stop hanging over the heads of consumers. The actual innovations in music, literature, and books aren't coming from copyright litigation.

Music has truly gotten stronger because of the fact that more artists are being discovered through various resources. OCremix.com, Ustream.com, Jamendo.com, live.fm, and all of the online radio services prove that copyright does NOTHING to get an artist paid. Especially OCRemix... You can't tell me that what those people do with songs on their free time should be hindered by what the original owner desires. One reason that I love that place so much is the fact that those remixers changed all of those songs out of love for the game music industry. Imagine trying to find the original authors of ALL of the songs on that site then asking permission.

Literature - I said it before, I'll say it again. Google Books is a huge plagiarism catching tool. If you can't find it on Google Books, it hasn't happened. Never mind the fact that people still look down on valedictorians who plagiarize. "Social mores" - the idea that some things in society are looked down upon. The plagiarization should be something to look down upon, not reading a book on Google Books.

Books - pdf = advertisement. Argue with Neil Gaiman. He had the same idea that somehow it was wrong, but he looked at the economic data and found out how to make money.

If you want to find examples of artists losing because of piracy, feel free. If you want to continue the argument on moral grounds, again, feel free. But saying I'm not doing objective analysis?

I just haven't put the hour long discussions here but okay, here ya go:

Copyright regime vs civil liberties - 55:00

Channels & Conflict: Response to Digital Media Distribution, Impact on Sales and Internet Piracy - 44:24

Black Hat USA 2010: The DMCA and ACTA vs Academic and Professional Research 1/5 - 14:57

While I've done a lot of research, I don't put down every last part that I've read, but here's also the GAO report on Piracy:

Link [http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-423]

According to experts and literature GAO reviewed, counterfeiting and piracy have produced a wide range of effects on consumers, industry, government, and the economy as a whole, depending on the type of infringements involved and other factors. Consumers are particularly likely to experience negative effects when they purchase counterfeit products they believe are genuine, such as pharmaceuticals. Negative effects on U.S. industry may include lost sales, lost brand value, and reduced incentives to innovate; however, industry effects vary widely among sectors and companies. The U.S. government may lose tax revenue, incur IP enforcement expenses, and face risks of counterfeits entering supply chains with national security or civilian safety implications. The U.S. economy as a whole may grow more slowly because of reduced innovation and loss of trade revenue.

And just for fun, Lawrence Lessig wants to get to the actual root of the problem, which is the way Congress is motivated to listen to the RIAA and ignore consumers

TEDxBoston - Lawrence Lessig - Of By 4

 

[Event_Horizon]

[In regard to permission culture] It's been what you've been describing for the entire time we've had this argument.

You never properly defined it. You just used the term and expected that its definition was self explanatory. Define your terms as you use them because I cannot assume what they mean.

Secondly, you say asking for permission impedes innovation, which is simply wrong. To innovate means creating something new. What you describe is not innovation in the least, it's modification. If the creator of their work wants it to be modified, it should be their decision. It's their work after all. Nobody should modify anything of yours without permission. Would you appreciate me editing your stories and changing them completely without your consent? I'd assume not.

That being said there is a bigger issue here when it comes to remixes, as you said later down on the page. There indeed has to be some middle ground for when the creator keeps their rights, and creativity is allow to follow from that.

If I have to ask for permission for a satire of a work, then that has to be the dumbest thing I've heard.

Copyright allows for parody and satire. So no, you don't have to ask permission for that.

And now, the more authoritarian side comes out...

Quite the contrary. I am a libertarian, so in my philosophy I allow people to do whatever they please. That means I must allow people to use their creation however they want, including allowance of keeping their work closed. You on the other hand want to force people to make their works open without their say. That is authoritarian.

Personal belief is that less people are enjoying the products of Square for various reasons along with their strong enforcement takedowns.

Market forces are doing their job if Square makes an inferior product. I don't see a problem here.

Given that the Youtube account has 90 vids, a LOT of work went into the script, which actually added a lot of story and made CC a lot easier to comprehend. The main thing they did do was use the ground work of Chrono Trigger and its story.

Exactly, they used the story, so it wasn't an independent work with their own story in their own universe. I understand that they wanted to make a fan project, and it's disappointing that Square made them stop, but I have to allow the good with the bad. You don't know the specific reasons for Square cancelling the project, so I am assuming innocence, which applies to both sides.

All you see is the black and white of the law, ignoring the impact that it would have had on the field, which was basically none.

Not at all. The only time where I addressed the law is in stating that it is too strong. I am not taking the side of the law. I'm taking the side of rights and ownership, and the law happens to be on this side too. That is nothing more than a coincidence. Chrono Trigger wasn't something the Crimson Echoes team owned, so did they have the right to change it?

You still fail to say anything about how any of these people are having their lives destroyed based on piracy, and still insist that piracy is the mark of the devil.

Please, I have not been so melodramatic. I don't speak in "goods" and "evils" but ethical principals of which the central tenet is human rights.

Whether a work is shared on Usenet, Bittorrent, or uploaded to a private server, what harm other than your insistent belief that I've somehow cost the artist money I may or may not spend is hurting the artist?

What harm? Their work could be stolen and changed, and someone else could profit from it. The author might want to keep the work pure because it is a personal account, or a fictionalized tale of actual events. They might not want fame or fortune. The reasons don't matter because the harm is done by infringing on the creator's rights in the first place.

If you want to ignore all of the evidence of artists trying new things and keeping away from copyright, be my guest.

I'm not ignoring the evidence, it's just that you provide no evidence, and don't understand why you don't. The methods are not the problem, it's the infringement of rights that comes from a specific person using those methods.

I don't deny the paradigm shift, or condemn it. If artists want to participate in that form of distribution then that's great. What you miss is that people are forcing artists to use those methods. Any type of force or coercion is not allowed in a free society. You are against the law for its force, and yet you accept the force your side uses because you deem it justified. Stop justifying the use of force.

Finally, the entire "artist need to be paid" paradigm, you want to tote. No, they create for other incentives than profit, which you seem not to even respond to.

Half of what you think I'm arguing for I'm actually not. I never said that artists need to be paid. I'm saying that artists should be able to choose if they get paid. There is a difference here. My entire argument comes down to choice, the right to choose how do use your own creative work. You however want that choice to be made by you, because it suits your own personal interests and what you think is good for society. That is the mindset of a dictator.

Like I said before, artists will do what they want, however they want, for whatever motivations they possess. I allow them to achieve their goals however they please. You want the artists to do things your way.

Run that entire thing by me again, with everything I said please?

YOU. COULD. CREATE. SOMETHING. NEW.

Someone wants to be a Luddite, that's their choice. Piracy has never been a problem, using law and litigation to solve everything has.

Oh but piracy is a problem, because it forces that Luddite to do something they don't want. Again, free society, human rights, I'd expect some of this to at least sink in by now. If someone wants to be or do something that is against their own best interest, you have to just let them do it. To force them to do otherwise is authoritarian.

First, the full extent of copyright law is usurped. We agree on that. We should also agree that things such as the DMCA try their very best to usurp the fair use rights of people.

Indeed, I absolutely agree here. I am completely against DMCA because it does more harm than good. Much of the specific things you say about the extent to copyright law I agree with you on. However I differentiate between what works and what doesn't. Even if we didn't call it copyright law, and we just called it something like "creator's liberty to achieve livelihood" I would be on the same side of the issue as I stand now. Because that's what all copyright is at a basic level. It gives the creator the right to choose distribution channels because manipulation of those distribution channels is essential for their personal success.

The root of the problem comes from why are they incentivized to pass such laws in the first place.

Nay, the root of the problem is who co-opted with who to make those laws in the first place. As a libertarian I blame the maker of those laws and the gatekeeper of power: the government. Had they stayed out of the issue, and only allowed basic copyright laws as protection of human rights, none of this would have happened.

We now have no public domain works being released because copyright is so long. Mickey Mouse should be open to everyone. Along with people being able to use the works of Ernest Hemingway in a compilation. In every last example, I've tried to show the immediate harm that copyright law impedes upon while you've actually tried to dismiss these as irrelevant.

The only irrelevance I've identified was your justification of other business models. Yes, they're great, fine, whatever, but they don't touch on the issue. I cannot condone the additions and extra limitations that have been added to copyright law over the decades. As I said I disagree with them. However you take the examples and justify your position that creators should not have the right to choose how they copy their works. Because that is the crux of the issue here.

Copyright is the right given to the creator to copy their works in order to directly manipulate their success. To say you want to get rid of copyright altogether is saying the creator does not have the right to copy their own work to directly manipulate their success. Essentially you're saying that the creator does not control their own work, and is unable to directly control their success.

There is a difference here between identifying the areas where copyright needs an overhaul, and simply dismissing the entire thing. I don't think you understand what it is you want to eradicate here.

Infringing? Yep. Fair use? Again, yep. Funny as all hell? Hell yes!

Parody isn't protected by copyright...

I'm not here for an ethics debate because in economics, the market doesn't care.

Quite the opposite in fact. The principal of a capitalist system is that people own their property, they own their body, they own their time, and they own the result of their work. You couldn't any more wrong here.

Pirates have their own personal freedoms and you seem to think that artists should have a say in every detail of what they create.

They should have a say because it's their work, and we have (or should have) a capitalist system where people own what they create. It should be up to the creator to decide how much authoritative control they have. As I said before, consumers have their personal freedoms as well except one: distribution. I've made it clear several times why distribution should be and is recognized to be solely the creator's right: because it affects their livelihood. It's not just a moral principal, but it is the economic principal that our economy is based on.

Why in the world, does my belief that piracy, is something other than people sharing information, impede on "The progress of the Arts and Sciences? [http://www.conservapedia.com/Copyright_Clause]"

Because it tramples on personal liberties.

If the artists get paid in other ways, piracy doesn't matter because in the end, everyone benefits.

The ends justify the means, again. I suppose if I violate your human rights for the greater good you'll be all for it. Sacrificing one for the good of the many, great philosophy to have.

I've said that copyright law is very limiting in what it can do.

That's a loaded statement, since as I said you paint copyright with a wide brush.

You still haven't shown any evidence to the contrary than your own beliefs and trying to dismiss mine as irrelevant because it doesn't correspond with yours.

These aren't beliefs, they are factual principals of the free market and human ethics. Your evidence is irrelevant because you don't focus on those principals, which is the core of the issue. Any benefit you provide is overridden by the fact that you are violating the rights of others.

Last I checked we had "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

Yes, like the liberty one has to decide how their creations are used. Oops, I bet you didn't think of that one. Don't go quoting the Declaration of Independence when it goes against your claims.

If it's a tool that is abused, it either needs to be lessened considerably (hence 5 year copyright) or taken away.

Ooooor, you could let the creator to decide how much or little copyright protection they need or want.

No person should absolutely destroy another's well being because they want to make a financial profit through the judicial system.

And yet you say they can risk another's well being because they want to make any kind of success through piracy? That seems a little hypocritical that you would go after the copyright holders for infringing rights instead of the pirates who also infringe on rights.

And you still ignore the statutory damages...

How can I ignore it when it was never brought up?

Statutory damages are outdated in the age of the internet with large amounts of data can be transfered, making the cost of every infringement unjust. And? I've already said the law needs to be reworked.

So let's get this straight. Even though, by law, I can record small clips of a movie and post them on Youtube, I'm a pirate. Even though I like a song, I can't share it on Grooveshark. Even though I like Pioneer One, I can't share it with the world on Bittorrent because I'm a pirate for distributing materials in various ways.

Yep

You seem to be begging the question that because an author loses a right to distribute, somehow piracy is wrong on all levels.

Well it is. The author has the right to distribute, and if the pirate distributes their work, they're breaking the author's right. That much is clear. It is only simplistic because we as a society have come to the conclusion that violating human rights is wrong. That is an absolute with almost do determent, and it's caused so much relative peace for so long. To say it's simple doesn't do the principal justice, since simple ethical framework seems to work the best. We do not violate the rights of others, and the government *should* be a reactive measure against the violation of rights. That's what the Constitution is about, that's what the founders intended, it's what our ethics and economic system is based on.

The path to hell is paved with good intentions, and many generally unkind people throughout history have justified their position for the "greater good" or for the "benefit of society". The only societies that have truly done well have been the recent societies with the concept of liberty.

I do recognize the transformative affect of the media, but nowhere should it override ethical principals. You however see the benefits of the distribution of media, and the scale of information, and are prepared to use that as justification to override the rights of others.

Did you miss my part of my original Shakespeare argument, discussing how King Lear WAS changed and given a happy ending even though that wasn't Shakespeare's original intent?

How is that a positive attribute?

You know the people who go through text books and iron out the negative aspects of history to spin whatever culture or nation towards the good side of the fight? You know how those people are usually met with scorn because they're changing history and deleting entire episodes of information from existence? Well how is changing the work of Shakespeare any different?

I really insist you learn about derivative works and transformative use.

There's nothing wrong with that. Copyright should keep a comfortable middle ground between derivative works and creator's original intent. I'm not saying the current system works as it is; I'm saying that the principals do. Even so, it doesn't allow pirates to do what they want, human rights be damned.

Moral imperative isn't changing more people to stop sharing media.

Thank you for stating the problem.

By all fundamental definition of that clause, copyright and patent law impede on this in the digital era.

Incorrect. The digital era indeed has outpaced a lot of the older ideas in the copyright law, but copyright law does not stop people from expressing ideas freely. It only stops others from forcing creative works to be free.

And with copyright law, we have various corporations litigating that cause a chilling effect rather than be better than what a pirate offers. Smaller artists don't even use copyright (which IMO is a major reason to see where the issues lie) for their works and yet, because the ideals sound good, that makes good protection?

If people want to abandon copyright law they can. Nobody has to litigate against their fan base, nobody forces them too. There is no problem with abandoning the old system because adherence to that system is entirely voluntary, unlike the effects of piracy.

Liberty of information sounds pretty good. And if anything copyright impedes on other human rights. So now you've just asked for liberty for one, not liberty for all. Liberty for all means they can distribute regardless.

Not at all. Liberty is about personal choice. Liberty means that someone who creates a work and owns that work can have the personal choice on how to profit from it. Others copying without permission infringes on the liberty of the creator. You have the argument backwards.

I'm truly failing to see how one person's needs for an economic profit that isn't secured impede on all other rights.

You've made your opponent into a straw man, so of course you don't see it. Consumers have rights to do almost anything they want with what they buy. The only single thing they cannot do is distribute. That is where their liberty ends. Well why is that? Because the creator of something has the desire, but not always, to profit from their work. For people who wish to profit from their work, they have the right, the liberty, to seek a particular channel of distribution that they think will most benefit them. The consumer on the other hand does not stand to benefit from the distribution, so why should they get the right? This creates a conflict of interest between the rights of the consumer to use their purchase, and the rights of the creator to profit from it. None of these participants can keep their human rights intact at the same time. If the consumer wins, the creator loses, and vice versa. The deciding factor on who's rights should win come down to who stands to benefit from distribution. Without question it is the creator. Therefore the creator should get the right of distribution, the right to copy, hence copyright.

To say that the consumer has more of a right to impact the creator than the creator themselves is saying that anyone else has the right to overpower you if they feel is beneficial. That thinking is completely against the concept of liberty. So, unfortunately, you are not on the side of liberty.

There's so many examples of people aggregating information that you seem to ignore here, all in the name of putting editors, authors, and innovators on an invisible pedestal, ignoring the other parts of society that innovate and use those stepping stones of work in various and unique ways.

I allow those people to climb to that pedestal if it suits them. It is not my right, nor anybody else's to keep them from it.

So before, you're saying copyright has no claws, and yet here, you're looking to say that it's used to secure their income through economic manipulation.

It's not economic manipulation, it's ownership, the cornerstone of our economic system.

Any producer has to find ways to convince a consumer to let go of money to their goods and services. If I go to a hotel, they cater to me for money.

Not correct. It is a mutually beneficial system, and the hotel doesn't "owe" you anything. They need money, and you need a place to stay, so you make an exchange and both parties are better off. What you describe is a system that goes one way.

What you've just described is to have all that taken away because I offer someone something, I magically have control of what they can do.

Again another straw man. The only thing you control is how to distribute your work. The person who buys it cannot, and you cannot control how they use it.

Enter the demand for foreign movies such as Memoirs of a Geisha, The Last Samurai and Oldboy (only an example). We now have demand from other sources, which causes more people to translate and discuss these movies. Consumer choice is increased, and overall, everyone is better off, save the American creators and monopolists.

You're preaching to the choir here man, I'm all for free trade, since it keeps any monopolies in check. The difference between your scenario and piracy is that your scenario is consistent with human rights and is entirely legal.

The same thing is going on now as the market changes into new channels of payment and distribution. None of that is unethical or immoral. The only immoral part is forcing those channels onto someone else.

If the copyright artist wants a consumer's money, they HAVE to compete with themselves and a world market.

Incorrect. They should never be forced to compete with themselves. Other people can compete with them with their own product, and the creator can choose to compete with themselves, but nobody else has the right to force the creator to compete against themselves. I know it happens, but it is still wrong.

Hence, a focus on economics, not morality.

The focus on economics is another way for the ends to justify the means. It turns ethics into dollars and cents, and it allows for people to trample on human rights. Is it right for me to plan your life for you every step of the way, even if it brings you economic success? Wouldn't it be better if you could choose for yourself? I leave the choice up to other people on how to handle their lives. It is my choice, and only my choice, to handle my own affairs.

That is the reason I denounce piracy so much, because it is other people making my choices for me. Saying "hey, well it helped you out" after the fact is irrelevant, because I am still left with my life in the hands of another person who doesn't lose from my failures or gain from my successes. That is the moral issue.

Now where copyright comes in is the protection of the law keeping people from manipulating my affairs. Just like in every other aspect of life whether it be the job I want to take, or the kind of car I want to buy, or even what food I want to eat, our ethics of law, while imperfect, are designed by the Constitution to keep others from keeping me from making my choices for me.

You're bemoaning a pirate for putting up a torrent because it's not authorized.

Um, no, I'm bemoaning the pirate for putting media on the torrent site because the pirate is using the torrent site to release the media for free, which violates the rights of the creator. I have nothing against torrent sites.

What is needing protection from economic damages?

Theft/plagiarism for one. It happens. Or if they want to take your story and sell it for a profit without your permission and without giving you any compensation.

If someone wants to lock up horseback riding and a certain style, a judge would laugh at them as he throws out the case.

As he should, wait do you even know what's protected vs what isn't? This is like the third time in this post alone that you assume things that copyright protects which it actually doesn't.

Their words extend to monopolies and the idea thing as Jefferson said, is what copyright law is trying to limit nowadays.

Somehow I doubt you're a constitutional law scholar. The words as they meant at the time regarded ideas, and how they shouldn't be monopolized. And behold ideas aren't protected by copyright. Once you start using the word "monopoly" in the context of ownership it looses all meaning. If you say I have a monopoly on my story, it really doesn't mean much, since by your definition you also have a monopoly on your shoes, or house, or your family. Heck you have a monopoly on your body. If monopolies are wrong, then by your usage of the word, you shouldn't own your body. See, it becomes meaningless.

We've already talked about distribution, now you're just saying pirates are to blame for everything.

Woah, when did I say pirates were to blame for "everything". I said they do unethical actions by violating rights. And I said that they have a tendency to make the problem worse by provoking the corporate interests into oppressive action. Not "everything" is their fault. Come on.

I used Dickens as an example. Change that to Salinger and that's the problem of copyright law impeding on what people can do and the law being slow in catching up to what people can do with technology.

I agree that Copyright has been slow to change. But once again if you want to resell your book on ebay or amazon, you can. If you want to give it to the library, you can. If you want to give it to a friend, you can. Consumer rights lets you a lot of different things.

And society loses how...?

Because it means no person ever has the ability to control their creative work's distribution. Suddenly people don't have the right to decide how their works are released. Once. Again. You're putting the good of society over the rights of individuals. Need I inform you that no tyrannical force ever gained power by liberty.

The author has more potential reasons... Because...?

No idea what you're trying to say here.

Ethics can't answer this because nothing is lost...?

Ethics can, and the ethics are clear: piracy is wrong because it infringes on the creator's rights. Done, in one sentence too.

And your entire view hinges on just an author being allowed in a free market, irregardless of the consequences.

I think you mean "regardless", in any case, yes the free market will solve the problem since it would be individual authors competing against each other using different distribution methods instead of the current system where an author must compete with himself against different distribution methods. You want to talk about efficiency, there is no efficiency in an author competing against themselves.

You rail on the system for being more efficient than what the artist can do themselves.

Not what I said I at all. I don't rail against the system; the system is good. I rail against people using the system for bad. Big difference.

Society benefits and yet you want to complain because people now have more choices and the artist has to compete in new ways to keep their work relevant.

A system used wrongly in which society benefits at the expense of others is not an ethical system.

You hinge on the moral argument because you can't accept the fact that people use the art for various ways other than what you view as piracy.

Again you're not reading what I wrote, or you're not keeping an open mind as to what I'm truly saying. I allow people to create art in any way they desire, but the pirate takes art and uses it however they please. That is wrong.

[rant]

I understand the current state of things isn't the best. We are in a transition period of media distribution. I like remixes and mashups just as much as anyone else, but the cost of removing a creator's ownership is far worse than a system where individual creators can compete against each other.

I know the media corporations have done a lot of wrong, and it is impractical if not impossible to ask permission from everyone along the way. I don't doubt that there is a problem, there's a big problem, but the key issue here is the solution. What solution are we going to take that is ethical, and doesn't hurt anyone's rights? Well the first is to expand fair use, allowing people manipulate excerpts of media. Another solution is to let the media corporation fail, or let their wallets get hit hard enough for them to understand the new epoch of media they're in. Copyright revision is definitely on the table, and emphasis on artists to use creative commons incentivizes creativity. Public domain could be expanded.

Ethics do not matter on this, and you continue to fail to show why it's wrong other than your own moral imperative to say the authors are sancrosanct in their decisions

That is only because you haven't been listening. Read some of the things I wrote, and it's pretty clear. The objective facts are these: human beings have rights. One of those rights is the right to own property, labor, and the fruits of their work. These rights just happen to be protected by the Constitution. Not only is this reflected in our laws but also in our economic system. One particular right is a creator's right to profit form their work how they see fit. They are able to profit from their work by directly manipulating their work's distribution. They alone have the right to decide channels of distribution because again, they own the work, they stand to gain or lose from it, they have the right to profit from it. Any other person who distributes their work without the creator knowing or permitting it is infringing on their rights. I mean the ethics are clear.

To then say that those rights need to be infringed for the good of the collective is going down a very dark road.

The author HAS to outcompete themselves. I can't say it much better...

But who say's they HAVE to? Oh, the pirates. And who are the pirates to decide if the creator should compete with themselves? Again this is a violation of rights. Other creators have the right to create and therefore compete with the original creator. However someone taking the creator's work and forcing the creator to compete with themselves is not only a violation of the rights of the creator, but a violation of the voluntary market. I'm sorry but you are just wrong here in so many ways.

If society benefits, the ethics does not matter in this regard.

Ooh, those are some words that can come back and bite you. Attempting to avoid a straw man I must say that your same argument can be used to support eugenics, or sterilization, or forced population control. That's an awesome idea there. Never mind people's rights, you know what's best for them - what's best for society.

they're not emotionally harmed

A psychic we have here. How do you know they're not emotionally harmed by it?

If too high, I go to a competitor (yes, a pirate is a competitor. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2653-Piracy]

The pirate is not a legitimate competitor in a market. Stop trying to justify their behavior.

In ALL of this, all you've done is assert a moral view that does nothing but try to guilt people into not sharing.

Dammit do you even understand what I'm saying? In ALL of this, all you've done closed your mind to any understanding outside of your own biased opinion and justifications. You ignore the moral view because the moral view is clear: piracy is unethical, and not because it's "stealing". Sharing is not the same thing as piracy, and I don't guilt people into not sharing. I'd encourage people to share, but to share without harming anyone else. And yes, going against someone's fundamental rights is harming them.

The moralism has been the Wrong. Question. at the end of the day. This entire paragraph proved exactly my points that I've been making since the beginning.

Somehow I doubt that, since your understanding of my points is tenuous at best, so let's see how ya did:

1) Artist has to outcompete themselves in all industries

Wrong there. No industry forces a creator to out compete themselves, only their competitors.

2) Permission has nothing to do with the creative process, it's a courtesy, but who needs it? No true competitor ever asked the permission of those already in the field to try to make money their own way.

Got that one right, assuming you mean legitimate competitors who aren't doing things unethically.

3) A voluntary system does not ensure your success. It doesn't matter how you achieve it. But if you go for that success, it can be in a number of choices you make. Basically, the market doesn't care how you're successful. Just so long as you do it.

Wrong there. The free market has principals, and it is a fair game if the participants play by the same rules. For example a free market doesn't allow force or coercion, the very same actions that pirates undertake. Everything about the free market is voluntary, and piracy is not voluntary because it forces the creator to compete against themselves in a distribution network they did not want.

So you got 1/3.

I should say the same for you. You've sent nothing to prove your own ideals other than "trust me because the moral argument is the right one".

Well, then reread what I wrote, because I have concise logic and reasoning for it on factual principals grounded in western ethics. Nowhere did I claim the moral high ground. I only put forward an argument in a moral context.

I just don't like the abuse of the system and how it's gamed to basically destroy people through various means.

I don't like it either, but there are two sides to every story. Dismissing copyright without looking at the law itself, not just how it's used, is simplistic. It's just like the people who dismiss vaccines because they have rat brains in them, not knowing how the rat brains actually work, and how they're beneficial to creating immunity.

The system and its damages need changing. The length needs to be shortened considerably. In order to see more innovative uses of Youtube and other filesharing sources, copyright needs to stop hanging over the heads of consumers. The actual innovations in music, literature, and books aren't coming from copyright litigation.

If the innovations are coming out independent of copyright, then obviously copyright wasn't holding them back. Logic.

Online radio services prove that copyright does NOTHING to get an artist paid.

Copyright isn't about getting the artist paid, it's about giving the artist the right to choose HOW they get paid.

You can't tell me that what those people do with songs on their free time should be hindered by what the original owner desires. One reason that I love that place so much is the fact that those remixers changed all of those songs out of love for the game music industry. Imagine trying to find the original authors of ALL of the songs on that site then asking permission.

I love OCRemix too, and the issue is complex, but any conflict can be solved by retooling fair use and public domain. I never said that the law as it stands currently is good, I said that the principals of copyright are good.

I'll start watching the videos when I get back from work.

The reason I assert confirmation bias is from the content of your posts. I have not seen an open mind willing to consider or understand the arguments I make. I agree with you on a lot of things, like distribution channels that work, and how the law has gone too far, but I have not seen reciprocation from you. I have not seen a desire to really understand how human rights, property rights, and ethics factor into all of this, which was the primary purpose of my post here. Throughout the arguments the ethical responses have been "don't do it, it's wrong, it's like stealing", and those arguments are shallow for many reasons. My intent was to give an ethical/moral argument with actual ethical premises behind it. You have not picked up on that. You dismiss it entirely because you see piracy as an "economic issue" and the moral argument isn't an "economic issue". I have rebutted that before. Two wrongs don't make a right, and a wrong made for a greater good is still wrong.

 

[Gindil]

-snip-

In an ironic twist, a story on Shakespeare came out today... [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110215/11165113112/would-shakespeare-have-survived-todays-copyright-laws.shtml]

I'll work on the rest later, but for now, I have to study myself.

 

[Gindil]

You never properly defined it. You just used the term and expected that its definition was self explanatory. Define your terms as you use them because I cannot assume what they mean.

Secondly, you say asking for permission impedes innovation, which is simply wrong. To innovate means creating something new. What you describe is not innovation in the least, it's modification. If the creator of their work wants it to be modified, it should be their decision. It's their work after all. Nobody should modify anything of yours without permission. Would you appreciate me editing your stories and changing them completely without your consent? I'd assume not.

In order to create something new, it is made from something old. There's a lot of basis for this from movies (Finding Forrester - Take words and make them your own) to literature (Fiction - Tolkien's orcs were later reused by others without permission for Warhammer 40K) to music (cover bands who use older songs before promoting their own). There's folklore and fairy tales as well as mp3 players and Japanese vs American cars where engineers tinker to find new things. Imagine Ford asking Toyota's permission to make a hybrid. They do it because the market is there. To narrow this down, people tend to write about what they love, but you aren't creating in a bubble. I like fantasy stories, and some of my work is modeled after Goodkind (before he got to monologuing) and Tolkien (who could explain a world, but damned if the characters felt a little flat IMO). That doesn't mean I take from them wholesale. But you're acting as if I HAVE to create all new original themes just to have orcs in my creation or use the dance of death from Goodkind's work. That's the permission culture that you seem to be trying to set up. I can't use these trains of thought because they are the separate ideas of these authors.

It's as if Mega Man wasn't based off of Asimov's work in sci-fi robotics, or Isaac Clarke (Dead Space) isn't an homage to the work of both Arthur C. Clarke... The ideas are still theirs but to say that people aren't inspired and absolutely MUST create new stuff seems to ignore the transformative/derivative uses that are prevalent in society.

That being said there is a bigger issue here when it comes to remixes, as you said later down on the page. There indeed has to be some middle ground for when the creator keeps their rights, and creativity is allow to follow from that.

I always question why people want to set up a balance system... That's truly what's made copyright very difficult to follow in the first place. Case in point... [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Upright_Music,_Ltd._v._Warner_Bros._Records_Inc.]

As a result of the court case, the sound of hip hop music, heavily based upon combinations of various samples from various sources, was forced to change.[citation needed] Records such as those produced by The Bomb Squad for Public Enemy, filled with literally dozens of samples, were no longer possible: each and every sample had to be cleared to avoid legal action. Sample clearance fees prohibited the use of more than one or two samples for most recordings, with some original recording artists requesting up to 100% of the publishing for use of a sample.

From there, licensing has gotten more ridiculous and we are faced with the situation that we have now, where the label (though less and less) or copyright holder has way too much power to say someone is "stealing" from them. The other effect it has had is to force people to give away music such as the remixes I showed earlier. That's just the view of the US, but judging from the plethora of stuff on Youtube, Nico Nico, and 4chan alone, I'm likely to believe the true "balance" is allowing people to derive works without permission, and make your name in some other way.

Copyright allows for parody and satire. So no, you don't have to ask permission for that.

Actually... [http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1384979.html] At least satire isn't covered. Further proof [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/06/henley-v-devore-second-class-citizenship-satire]. That's at least two cases but they haven't been tried by the Supreme Court. Still, they set precedents in their respective districts that can kill derivative works that fall under satire. How these don't get through free speech but parodies do is beyond me...

Quite the contrary. I am a libertarian, so in my philosophy I allow people to do whatever they please. That means I must allow people to use their creation however they want, including allowance of keeping their work closed. You on the other hand want to force people to make their works open without their say. That is authoritarian.

Nope, they're free to do as they please and the results benefit everyone. That's not authoritarian. How you seem to believe that creations can be closed to others in a free market, with or without the artist's intent, seems to defy human nature.

Exactly, they used the story, so it wasn't an independent work with their own story in their own universe. I understand that they wanted to make a fan project, and it's disappointing that Square made them stop, but I have to allow the good with the bad. You don't know the specific reasons for Square cancelling the project, so I am assuming innocence, which applies to both sides.

They explained it pretty forcefully in the letter. Link [http://crimsonechoes.com/letter.pdf] (pdf). They would argue in court for "willful" infringement (url=http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000504----000-.html]Linkage[/url]

In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000.

The burden of proof fell on Square to prove this in court, the problem is that for three fans to create a game based on a rom hack, for three years, in no way was this just. It was a shakedown and scare attempt that would have been effective except for the release of the new hack that came out last December. That's more of a chilling effect than the economic monopoly copyright law should intend.

All you see is the black and white of the law, ignoring the impact that it would have had on the field, which was basically none.

Not at all. The only time where I addressed the law is in stating that it is too strong. I am not taking the side of the law. I'm taking the side of rights and ownership, and the law happens to be on this side too. That is nothing more than a coincidence. Chrono Trigger wasn't something the Crimson Echoes team owned, so did they have the right to change it?

I would argue that the script wasn't something that Square owned and was a derivative work. For them to censor another group isn't exactly a tenet of free speech nor was it a terribly effective way to enforce an imaginary ownership. Also, consider that the people who actually created CT (Toriyama, Kato, Sakaguchi, to name a few...) have since moved on from the company so that it doesn't have the same people that made the game in the first place.

You still fail to say anything about how any of these people are having their lives destroyed based on piracy, and still insist that piracy is the mark of the devil.

Please, I have not been so melodramatic. I don't speak in "goods" and "evils" but ethical principals of which the central tenet is human rights.

Just as a note, this was meant to be more hyperbole than based on your argument. I'd been watching Water Boy when I wrote this so... Yeah.

Still, I disagree that copyright law is an ethical debate. All of our talks have been based on economics. Morality doesn't play into that side.

If we are talking about Patent law in India [http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/2010/10/2010102920031160477.html], where cheaper medicines are not allowed in the country because of Europe's need to stop them at the border, then we are talking about ethics. Those cheaper medicines help others to survive, but they are made by third parties who usually don't have patents on certain drugs. A drug company has an incentive to make a patent far reaching for maximum profit, which can hurt clientele who may need something cheaper than what the patent hold profits from. Such is an ethical debate.

Whether a work is shared on Usenet, Bittorrent, or uploaded to a private server, what harm other than your insistent belief that I've somehow cost the artist money I may or may not spend is hurting the artist?

What harm? Their work could be stolen and changed, and someone else could profit from it. The author might want to keep the work pure because it is a personal account, or a fictionalized tale of actual events. They might not want fame or fortune. The reasons don't matter because the harm is done by infringing on the creator's rights in the first place.

Fanfiction.net [http://www.fanfiction.net/] disagrees with you. So does the work of Joss Whedon (who has since had a term named after him, Jossed [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Jossed]), JK Rowling (Draco had his ending changed because of fan stories trying to paint him in a sympathetic light). Also, Bar Karma [http://current.com/shows/bar-karma/] is all about ideas being exchanged between creators and fans.

So an artist can keep their work pure, but people still create based off that.

If you want to ignore all of the evidence of artists trying new things and keeping away from copyright, be my guest.

I'm not ignoring the evidence, it's just that you provide no evidence, and don't understand why you don't. The methods are not the problem, it's the infringement of rights that comes from a specific person using those methods.

I don't deny the paradigm shift, or condemn it. If artists want to participate in that form of distribution then that's great. What you miss is that people are forcing artists to use those methods. Any type of force or coercion is not allowed in a free society. You are against the law for its force, and yet you accept the force your side uses because you deem it justified. Stop justifying the use of force.

I can't get behind a so called saying that piracy forces people to adjust what they do...

It happens regardless. Just like when Gutenberg made the press it was a paradigm shift. People could still write things out on lambskin but it was easier to read the paper. Better yet, how about the notion of everyone using a smartphone? No one says you have to get one, but it's far easier to use that than say a phone from 20 years ago. It's like you're trying to tell me to stop using technology because it may hurt an artists' bottom line. That's technically a Luddite in the making...

Finally, the entire "artist need to be paid" paradigm, you want to tote. No, they create for other incentives than profit, which you seem not to even respond to.

Half of what you think I'm arguing for I'm actually not. I never said that artists need to be paid. I'm saying that artists should be able to choose if they get paid. There is a difference here. My entire argument comes down to choice, the right to choose how do use your own creative work. You however want that choice to be made by you, because it suits your own personal interests and what you think is good for society. That is the mindset of a dictator.

Like I said before, artists will do what they want, however they want, for whatever motivations they possess. I allow them to achieve their goals however they please. You want the artists to do things your way.

That's a false dichotomy on both parts. Your assertion has been to link me to communism, totalitarianism, and every other negative aspect when that has never been something I've said. I accept that people share works at no monetary value. It happens that we share good stories and leave bad actors in these details alone. I accept that piracy is advertising and a choice on the user's part to find their media as they see fit. I also understand quite clearly that the needs of people in different countries changes based on what they look for. Ironically, a lot of middle easterners are interested in western media but can't get to it. Link [http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101208/ts_yblog_thelookout/wikileaks-cable-hollywood-helping-to-stop-the-spread-of-terrorism]

Freedom is not an author having the ability to shut down media sources at will. Freedom is information dispersing anywhere it wants to go. To say that an author should have that ability, is to grant that a monopoly is formed around how people should receive information. Those are not assertions I am making; in forming secret committees (communism) or having one party decree that information is bad (totalitarianism) these take away liberties. What's amazing is that you assert an artist should have this right, when natural liberties say otherwise. People are neither sheep nor cattle, and I'm sure that having a producer having so much power over imaginary property has had an adverse effect on all things it touches.

By the same token, consumers will do what they want, however they want, for whatever motivations they possess. I allow them to achieve their goals however they please. Such is the dichotomy over the price of goods and services and how we attain progress.

Run that entire thing by me again, with everything I said please?

YOU. COULD. CREATE. SOMETHING. NEW.

No, I asked for a specific thing. Derivative works are old ideas made new. Newness is not a bubble. Stop acting as if people aren't inspired by older stories.

Someone wants to be a Luddite, that's their choice. Piracy has never been a problem, using law and litigation to solve everything has.

Oh but piracy is a problem, because it forces that Luddite to do something they don't want. Again, free society, human rights, I'd expect some of this to at least sink in by now. If someone wants to be or do something that is against their own best interest, you have to just let them do it. To force them to do otherwise is authoritarian.

I guess we should be stuck in the Industrial Revolution Age since the button pushers wanted to keep their jobs. Or Ford should still be making the model T since it was the first car. I guess progress in those areas shouldn't have happened for another century.

Free society - technology allows them to have a number of songs on legal cloud services

human rights - the ability to not have to worry about copyright infringement bankrupting you. Or you have the freedom to find your own sources of media whether it's author approved or not. It's the consumer's choice. Mercantilism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism] seems to be pretty accurate in saying that these goods should be in a fixed supply and should remain to the benefit of only the seller. I doubt that system is to everyone's benefit.

It gives the creator the right to choose distribution channels because manipulation of those distribution channels is essential for their personal success.

And my entire issue is that this is effectively monopolistic gain, which hurts society in the long run. Take TicketMaster, being able to own most of the concert halls in the US. Yes, it's stable, but they price gouge to make themselves richer and everyone else poorer.

Another example is how publishers have already priced pdfs at a higher price than hardcover books. I've mentioned that before, but it should be emphasized that anyone can choose the channel they want, but it's not guaranteed that they'll make money. If they fail (think Sony MD or their recent PS3 fiasco), it should not be because piracy is a scapegoat for their business failure. That's the entire problem with this supposed monopoly idea; it fails to take into account the human element, where people do things to their own self interest and to their own benefit. I've heard of very few monopolies that can succeed for long without government assistance. Given that you have the government trying to "correct the market" (think 2008 meltdown) I would think twice about just such a monopolistic advantage for artists.

The root of the problem comes from why are they incentivized to pass such laws in the first place.

Nay, the root of the problem is who co-opted with who to make those laws in the first place. As a libertarian I blame the maker of those laws and the gatekeeper of power: the government. Had they stayed out of the issue, and only allowed basic copyright laws as protection of human rights, none of this would have happened.

We're arguing the same thing. I'm saying that Congressmen passed the laws because of the lobbying dollars given to them (look at Patrick Leahy's donation records on opensecrets.com). Then again, the Supreme Court hasn't helped much with anticonsumer rulings such as Eldred vs Ashcroft.

We now have no public domain works being released because copyright is so long. Mickey Mouse should be open to everyone. Along with people being able to use the works of Ernest Hemingway in a compilation. In every last example, I've tried to show the immediate harm that copyright law impedes upon while you've actually tried to dismiss these as irrelevant.

The only irrelevance I've identified was your justification of other business models. Yes, they're great, fine, whatever, but they don't touch on the issue. I cannot condone the additions and extra limitations that have been added to copyright law over the decades. As I said I disagree with them. However you take the examples and justify your position that creators should not have the right to choose how they copy their works. Because that is the crux of the issue here.

They shouldn't. There should be as many channels "open" as possible for people to gain access to works. That's what the other business models are for, incentivizing people to create MORE without the need to litigate their advantage. In order to not sustain a bad system, you have to move away from it.

Another way to think about it, NO author should ever have the right to say no to a library on allowing their book to be inside. But you say that should be their choice because they have a right.

The consequences of that action are more profound than the act itself. First, if an author had such a demand, their work would not be able to proliferate. Second, what would happen if someone gave a book to the library that was on this self banned list? I'm not "forcing" a channel open because someone does a better job at marketing somewhere else. It's not authoritarian to believe that if someone can do the job better somewhere else, it doesn't help me out. The author basically has a choice of starting up or finishing a project. What other people do with that work (other than a book burning, a serious offense with me) should not be something the author can choose on close inspection.

Copyright is the right given to the creator to copy their works in order to directly manipulate their success. To say you want to get rid of copyright altogether is saying the creator does not have the right to copy their own work to directly manipulate their success. Essentially you're saying that the creator does not control their own work, and is unable to directly control their success.

There is a difference here between identifying the areas where copyright needs an overhaul, and simply dismissing the entire thing. I don't think you understand what it is you want to eradicate here.

I continue to assert a severe limitation on copyright. That isn't the eradication of it, but it does take out a lot of the "sting" that copyright holders can do to people. It also allows the innovations that have not been prevalent since the 1930s.

The pros of such a limitation [http://www.jazz.com/jazz-blog/2008/7/9/where-copyright-goes-wrong] most certainly outweigh the cons of a false incentive on stifling culture.

Infringing? Yep. Fair use? Again, yep. Funny as all hell? Hell yes!

Parody isn't protected by copyright...

Satire isn't, fair use = parody. Still a derivative work.

I'm not here for an ethics debate because in economics, the market doesn't care.

Quite the opposite in fact. The principal of a capitalist system is that people own their property, they own their body, they own their time, and they own the result of their work. You couldn't any more wrong here.

Interesting... Mike Masnick is an economist and understands these issues pretty well. We're talking about copyright and economic decisions, where the market doesn't care. You release a work, it's going to be recorded, bittorrented, videotaped, watched, and read 20 ways from Sunday. How people own that you have yet to define.

Pirates have their own personal freedoms and you seem to think that artists should have a say in every detail of what they create.

They should have a say because it's their work, and we have (or should have) a capitalist system where people own what they create. It should be up to the creator to decide how much authoritative control they have. As I said before, consumers have their personal freedoms as well except one: distribution. I've made it clear several times why distribution should be and is recognized to be solely the creator's right: because it affects their livelihood. It's not just a moral principal, but it is the economic principal that our economy is based on.

It seems the consumers have a say in sharing media regardless of the creator rights... Just a suggestion, "should be" defines a weak argument. What is happening in the world? Those are the better questions than how you can stop it.

Why in the world, does my belief that piracy, is something other than people sharing information, impede on "The progress of the Arts and Sciences? [http://www.conservapedia.com/Copyright_Clause]"

Because it tramples on personal liberties.

Not for individuals

If the artists get paid in other ways, piracy doesn't matter because in the end, everyone benefits.

The ends justify the means, again. I suppose if I violate your human rights for the greater good you'll be all for it. Sacrificing one for the good of the many, great philosophy to have.

*facepalm.jpg*

Human rights haven't been trampled since it's not someone violently putting you in jail for trumped up charges, not being arrested for racism, nor is it blackmail by using a photoshop of your wife and kids to gain access into your corporation. And yes, it seems the reality of life agrees with me.

I've said that copyright law is very limiting in what it can do.

That's a loaded statement, since as I said you paint copyright with a wide brush.

And you've still painted it with your own brush. The easel is still empty...

You still haven't shown any evidence to the contrary than your own beliefs and trying to dismiss mine as irrelevant because it doesn't correspond with yours.

These aren't beliefs, they are factual principals of the free market and human ethics. Your evidence is irrelevant because you don't focus on those principals, which is the core of the issue. Any benefit you provide is overridden by the fact that you are violating the rights of others.

*ahem*

Factual evidence, news data or anything showing or proving that economics is a moral debate. Or, if need be, something more than your personal belief. All you've done is repeat the same things over and over in each post with little if anything to back it up.

Last I checked we had "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

Yes, like the liberty one has to decide how their creations are used. Oops, I bet you didn't think of that one. Don't go quoting the Declaration of Independence when it goes against your claims.

Glad to see you ignore the rest of it. Still doesn't change the fact that the "pursuit of handout" from copyright law seems pretty valid at this junction.

If it's a tool that is abused, it either needs to be lessened considerably (hence 5 year copyright) or taken away.

Ooooor, you could let the creator to decide how much or little copyright protection they need or want.

They're doing that now. Wonder which ones are successful...? Hmmm...

No person should absolutely destroy another's well being because they want to make a financial profit through the judicial system.

And yet you say they can risk another's well being because they want to make any kind of success through piracy? That seems a little hypocritical that you would go after the copyright holders for infringing rights instead of the pirates who also infringe on rights.

Seeing as how our copyright law is slanted in their favor and they can do a lot more damage, consumers have rights too. And before you get into the "many vs few argument" again, stop doing that please. That's getting annoying when all you do is repeat the same thing ad nauseum and I'll begin to throw out even more of this argument since you've yet to back it up with any digestable evidence other than your opinions.

It's not hypocritical when all I've done is assert that consumers have rights to sell media, copy it for backups or give it away regardless of monetary profit. But seeing as how copyright law is being used to find people [http://torrentfreak.com/dutch-court-forces-isp-to-hand-over-name/] through IP laws (4th Amendment should prevent this) and they have to go through the hassle of a trial for what amounts to a small gain monetarily (but a big gain in raised ire), it's not hypocritical [http://torrentfreak.com/lawyer-brein-anti-piracy-spy-uploaded-pirate-movie-to-usenet-101013/] to think that the law should really be curtailed from those abuses.

And you still ignore the statutory damages...

How can I ignore it when it was never brought up?

Statutory damages are outdated in the age of the internet with large amounts of data can be transfered, making the cost of every infringement unjust. And? I've already said the law needs to be reworked.

I brought statutory damages at least twice... I also recall a look into Anne Hathaway that went by but it looks like that went unnoticed as well.

So let's get this straight. Even though, by law, I can record small clips of a movie and post them on Youtube, I'm a pirate. Even though I like a song, I can't share it on Grooveshark. Even though I like Pioneer One, I can't share it with the world on Bittorrent because I'm a pirate for distributing materials in various ways.

Yep

*Facepalm.jpg [http://pic.phyrefile.com/n/na/narf/2010/06/14/facepalm.jpg]*

More power to ya, bro...

You seem to be begging the question that because an author loses a right to distribute, somehow piracy is wrong on all levels.

Well it is. The author has the right to distribute, and if the pirate distributes their work, they're breaking the author's right. That much is clear. It is only simplistic because we as a society have come to the conclusion that violating human rights is wrong. That is an absolute with almost do determent, and it's caused so much relative peace for so long. To say it's simple doesn't do the principal justice, since simple ethical framework seems to work the best. We do not violate the rights of others, and the government *should* be a reactive measure against the violation of rights. That's what the Constitution is about, that's what the founders intended, it's what our ethics and economic system is based on.

That's not human rights... Human rights is the taking of land by force. It's the segregation of the population at the point of a gun. It's the destruction of Tiananmen Square, or the Buddhist uprisings in Taiwan. It's physically going out and protesting against the government when they try to silence an author over being a Red. These are human rights when they are impeded upon or fought for.

All of that has nothing to do with being able to work in or enjoy an economic system. If I'm an editor, I can coerce authors to come to me for distributing material. No matter the system, I take a risk. In EVERY industry, there is the risk of not making enough money in someway shape or form. I might fail if the startup money is spent unwisely. I might fail if too many authors go elsewhere, meaning I have to change pricing. That has nothing to do with ethics and all the more to do with the economic system you come to depend on. Finally, the Founders were all about freedom and your system seems heavily influenced on mercantilism, something they abhorred. They also found little interest in monopolies and more in not infringing on our rights for supposed economic gain (though slavery was a hot topic...). These are economic choices that don't impose on your right to risk the market and make something with it. What you've basically just asked for is a safety net when someone gambles in Vegas.

The path to hell is paved with good intentions, and many generally unkind people throughout history have justified their position for the "greater good" or for the "benefit of society". The only societies that have truly done well have been the recent societies with the concept of liberty.

This is getting annoying when all you do is use the buzzwords of "greater good" and "benefit of society", "authoritarian" and "communist" because your view is that of saying consumer liberty needs to be impeded upon for the author to produce a profit. Sorry, I don't make choices at the point of a gun. They want a profit from me, they better work to gain my attention from the various other people that may want my money.

I do recognize the transformative affect of the media, but nowhere should it override ethical principals. You however see the benefits of the distribution of media, and the scale of information, and are prepared to use that as justification to override the rights of others.

There's no justification, only statements of the facts, like you're justifying borderline calling me "communist", "socialist", and any other buzzword because of this supposed "ethical" debate. Odd that it's growing more and more into us going around in circles...

Did you miss my part of my original Shakespeare argument, discussing how King Lear WAS changed and given a happy ending even though that wasn't Shakespeare's original intent?

How is that a positive attribute?

You know the people who go through text books and iron out the negative aspects of history to spin whatever culture or nation towards the good side of the fight? You know how those people are usually met with scorn because they're changing history and deleting entire episodes of information from existence? Well how is changing the work of Shakespeare any different?

Remember my last post? Shakespeare copied entire plays. Changed my view a lot to also learn he was poor his entire lifetime and pretty much wrote stories or copied them for his theater. Even that was given to him. The guy had some major fame, but he was destitute most of it... Sounds like scientists nowadays. Judging from how King Lear's happier ending was celebrated during the 1800s but Shakespeare's sadder ending is relevant today, I'd say these derivative works show that both can coexist. Something that an author doesn't need is more protection. You've yet to say why they need protection from a market place. Please, no more of this:

Well it is. The author has the right to distribute, and if the pirate distributes their work, they're breaking the author's right. That much is clear. It is only simplistic because we as a society have come to the conclusion that violating human rights is wrong.

I have answered that twice now in this post. If we're looking at their economic situation, then morals have very little to do with this. I'll actually answer this later on, but the fact is that if current copyright law (or as I view it, the current protectionist model) isn't effective, given that it's heavily sided towards creators of content, you need something more than morality to curtail the public view of piracy.

I really insist you learn about derivative works and transformative use.

There's nothing wrong with that. Copyright should keep a comfortable middle ground between derivative works and creator's original intent. I'm not saying the current system works as it is; I'm saying that the principals do. Even so, it doesn't allow pirates to do what they want, human rights be damned.

First you say it needs to be balanced. Now in the same paragraph, you're saying the principles work of economic gain through copyright enforcement/ copyright in general. If the principles of copyright supposedly work, why aren't more authors looking for that benefit? You've yet to answer that question, nor the question of how this supposed principle works, when there's a lot of evidence to the contrary (Shakespeare) or the very fact that art and works are created without copyright (Deviantart, Youtube, Ustream, Jamendo [Creative Commons, I consider a different way of doing business since it allows people to know if they can share or not]), or the litigation is too overbearing for what's needed. Also, human rights haven't been interrupted. Economic rights, maybe, I'll grant you that one for once, but not human rights.

Moral imperative isn't changing more people to stop sharing media.

Thank you for stating the problem.

Thank you for ignoring all the solutions.

By all fundamental definition of that clause, copyright and patent law impede on this in the digital era.

Incorrect. The digital era indeed has outpaced a lot of the older ideas in the copyright law, but copyright law does not stop people from expressing ideas freely. It only stops others from forcing creative works to be free.

Riiight... Yeah, no evidence of that happening.

And with copyright law, we have various corporations litigating that cause a chilling effect rather than be better than what a pirate offers. Smaller artists don't even use copyright (which IMO is a major reason to see where the issues lie) for their works and yet, because the ideals sound good, that makes good protection?

If people want to abandon copyright law they can. Nobody has to litigate against their fan base, nobody forces them too. There is no problem with abandoning the old system because adherence to that system is entirely voluntary, unlike the effects of piracy.

But that undermines your point that piracy is causing this. It also undermines your point that piracy is creating this problem. I would read the jazz article up top because that's what was forced on artists, and it truly affected the jazz music in the US from bad copyright law.

And assertions don't make good anti piracy statements.

Liberty of information sounds pretty good. And if anything copyright impedes on other human rights. So now you've just asked for liberty for one, not liberty for all. Liberty for all means they can distribute regardless.

Not at all. Liberty is about personal choice. Liberty means that someone who creates a work and owns that work can have the personal choice on how to profit from it. Others copying without permission infringes on the liberty of the creator. You have the argument backwards.

Doubtful since liberty means freedom from restraint. Ironic that you want the author to restrain what a consumer does in the name of economic gain. I'm just glad more and more people seem to be finding the restraints of the copyright system and are shedding it off.

I'm truly failing to see how one person's needs for an economic profit that isn't secured impede on all other rights.

You've made your opponent into a straw man, so of course you don't see it. Consumers have rights to do almost anything they want with what they buy. The only single thing they cannot do is distribute. That is where their liberty ends. Well why is that? Because the creator of something has the desire, but not always, to profit from their work. For people who wish to profit from their work, they have the right, the liberty, to seek a particular channel of distribution that they think will most benefit them. The consumer on the other hand does not stand to benefit from the distribution, so why should they get the right? This creates a conflict of interest between the rights of the consumer to use their purchase, and the rights of the creator to profit from it. None of these participants can keep their human rights intact at the same time. If the consumer wins, the creator loses, and vice versa. The deciding factor on who's rights should win come down to who stands to benefit from distribution. Without question it is the creator. Therefore the creator should get the right of distribution, the right to copy, hence copyright.

 

[Gindil]

1) freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.

3) freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.

7) unwarranted or impertinent freedom in action or speech, or a form or instance of it: to take liberties.

If a creator can control what a person does to their own economic benefit, that's selfishness. That is also not liberty. I don't know how you're using this word, but by the definitions found at dictionary.com, liberty is for all and not limiting their choices to only those of the first, second, or third party

To say that the consumer has more of a right to impact the creator than the creator themselves is saying that anyone else has the right to overpower you if they feel is beneficial. That thinking is completely against the concept of liberty. So, unfortunately, you are not on the side of liberty.

I believe I have it more accurately than someone who's dismissed the words of Thomas Jefferson, only used one link in the last 2 pages of argument, and seems to be misguided on the definitions of liberty. Liberty is unrestrained as I've said above, so I can't literally stop what you do, only work to persuade you to buy from me. Such is a free market. The market you describe is a market that isn't healthy. I would be worried about that.

There's so many examples of people aggregating information that you seem to ignore here, all in the name of putting editors, authors, and innovators on an invisible pedestal, ignoring the other parts of society that innovate and use those stepping stones of work in various and unique ways.

I allow those people to climb to that pedestal if it suits them. It is not my right, nor anybody else's to keep them from it.

They've never been beneath you. Odd first sentence...

So before, you're saying copyright has no claws, and yet here, you're looking to say that it's used to secure their income through economic manipulation.

It's not economic manipulation, it's ownership, the cornerstone of our economic system.

And this goes back full circle... No, we went down this road about how copyright property isn't the same as personal property laws. You conceded the point. Are you now trying to assert, yet again, that copyright laws are the same as personal property laws?

Further, it's an economic manipulation because what you're doing is taking the dollars that would have been spent elsewhere and physically trying to put them in the author's pocket. Doing that, whether through litigation or forcing only one website to carry your book is not a free society. This is what you're explaining by saying that this is author's choice. That is not the way I would want to remember an author or content creator.

Any producer has to find ways to convince a consumer to let go of money to their goods and services. If I go to a hotel, they cater to me for money.

Not correct. It is a mutually beneficial system, and the hotel doesn't "owe" you anything. They need money, and you need a place to stay, so you make an exchange and both parties are better off. What you describe is a system that goes one way.

Your descriptions put most of the power in the hands of the few (author/holders of copyrighted content). That's not a mutually beneficial system if they limit the choices I can make with my media.

What you've just described is to have all that taken away because I offer someone something, I magically have control of what they can do.

Again another straw man. The only thing you control is how to distribute your work. The person who buys it cannot, and you cannot control how they use it.

I never had control of how my work is distributed. If anything [http://www.boingboing.net/2007/05/02/digg_users_revolt_ov.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+boingboing/iBag+(Boing+Boing)], it gets on the internet, it ain't coming off. Your assertion doesn't match up to reality. The AACS debacle should prove the exact same thing... The more you try to control something, the less control you have with it.

Enter the demand for foreign movies such as Memoirs of a Geisha, The Last Samurai and Oldboy (only an example). We now have demand from other sources, which causes more people to translate and discuss these movies. Consumer choice is increased, and overall, everyone is better off, save the American creators and monopolists.

You're preaching to the choir here man, I'm all for free trade, since it keeps any monopolies in check. The difference between your scenario and piracy is that your scenario is consistent with human rights and is entirely legal.

Ok... Let's also say this... Anime started with piracy and continues because of it. Such is human rights and still entirely legal.

The same thing is going on now as the market changes into new channels of payment and distribution. None of that is unethical or immoral. The only immoral part is forcing those channels onto someone else.

... You seem to have lost it here by saying it's immoral again...

If the copyright artist wants a consumer's money, they HAVE to compete with themselves and a world market.

Incorrect. They should never be forced to compete with themselves. Other people can compete with them with their own product, and the creator can choose to compete with themselves, but nobody else has the right to force the creator to compete against themselves. I know it happens, but it is still wrong.

O_O
-_-
O_O


I... I... Wow... Forcing someone to be better today than they were tomorrow is a bad thing... There's a LOT of coaches that are going to be fired tomorrow...

Hence, a focus on economics, not morality.

The focus on economics is another way for the ends to justify the means. It turns ethics into dollars and cents, and it allows for people to trample on human rights. Is it right for me to plan your life for you every step of the way, even if it brings you economic success? Wouldn't it be better if you could choose for yourself? I leave the choice up to other people on how to handle their lives. It is my choice, and only my choice, to handle my own affairs.

That is the reason I denounce piracy so much, because it is other people making my choices for me. Saying "hey, well it helped you out" after the fact is irrelevant, because I am still left with my life in the hands of another person who doesn't lose from my failures or gain from my successes. That is the moral issue.

Look, if you want to ride a horse and buggy, be my guest. No one's stopping you. No one's stopping you from fighting windmills with a fork (except maybe the owner of the land the windmill is on). No one's stopping you from upgrading your phone to the latest gadget or gizmo where you have more options on it than the last one. No ones telling you to download a song, check out a new band, read information on new economic deals, or check out an author that other people might like. Economics (like the math involved) merely shows us what people are doing. France and Hadopi = more piracy underground. Napster destroyed = more efficient systems of decentralization (Bittorrent). Recording labels fight for copyright infringement = lost money and revenue instead of innovation and changing of business models. It's just like xkcd here [http://xkcd.com/263/]. The math doesn't lie that people do it for their own economic advantage. If I only make $200 a month, and a cd is $10, I'm not going to buy that CD. I'm also going to think real hard about that $1 download. The two things you describe are to ask an author for permission on everything, which isn't a free society, along with a belief that authors should have all rights.

They still have their rights, they're are still human and treated with dignity and fairness.

Now where copyright comes in is the protection of the law keeping people from manipulating my affairs. Just like in every other aspect of life whether it be the job I want to take, or the kind of car I want to buy, or even what food I want to eat, our ethics of law, while imperfect, are designed by the Constitution to keep others from keeping me from making my choices for me.

And no one does because we don't control your brain man...

You're bemoaning a pirate for putting up a torrent because it's not authorized.

Um, no, I'm bemoaning the pirate for putting media on the torrent site because the pirate is using the torrent site to release the media for free, which violates the rights of the creator. I have nothing against torrent sites.

Good time to put this up... Bill Gates knew which battles to pick [http://www.globalnerdy.com/2007/03/13/microsoft-if-youre-going-to-pirate-software-it-might-as-well-be-ours/]. Piracy as a morality issue just isn't one of them...

If someone wants to lock up horseback riding and a certain style, a judge would laugh at them as he throws out the case.

As he should, wait do you even know what's protected vs what isn't? This is like the third time in this post alone that you assume things that copyright protects which it actually doesn't.

That was an allusion to certain laws to copyright yoga steps. Link [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Govt-says-no-one-can-claim-copyright-on-yoga-asanas/articleshow/7432959.cms]. Suffice to say, people HAVE tried to do that.

Their words extend to monopolies and the idea thing as Jefferson said, is what copyright law is trying to limit nowadays.

Somehow I doubt you're a constitutional law scholar. The words as they meant at the time regarded ideas, and how they shouldn't be monopolized. And behold ideas aren't protected by copyright. Once you start using the word "monopoly" in the context of ownership it looses all meaning. If you say I have a monopoly on my story, it really doesn't mean much, since by your definition you also have a monopoly on your shoes, or house, or your family. Heck you have a monopoly on your body. If monopolies are wrong, then by your usage of the word, you shouldn't own your body. See, it becomes meaningless.

Never said I was. I just have an interest in the Constitution, as an natural borne American should, IMO. But you've effectively thrown up the strawman. Once again, you go back to property rights equating to copyright rights. I've already told you the two aren't the same. Here, I'll help break it down with an actual copyright lawyer [http://volokh.com/2009/10/05/copyright-and-morals/].

These are some ways to determine what effective laws are: I assert life plus 70 is inefficient because it wildly exceeds necessary incentives and has negative impacts on the creation of other works.

In terms of morality and the Valenti quote. To me, copyright is an economic right, not a moral right and does not raise moral issues. The Second Circuit made this point too, agreeing with Judge Lynch:

?Copyright and trademark are not matters of strong moral principle.
Intellectual property regimes are economic legislation based on policy
decisions that assign rights based on assessments of what legal rules will produce the greatest economic good for society as a whole.? Sarl Louis Feraud Int?l v. Viewfinder, Inc., 406 F. Supp. 2d 274, 281 (S.D.N.Y. 2005), affirmed on this point, vacated and remanded on other grounds, 489 F.3d 474, 480 n.3 (2d Cir. 2007).

The conflation of property rights and copyright undermines your argument. The effect of one legal entity, be it a business or person being able to control the market to their own economic advantage, does not lose validity, whether we call it a monopoly, oligarchy or monopolistic competition. I don't throw around monopoly lightly. I only use it when you effectively want to do exactly what the definition states.

And society loses how...?

Because it means no person ever has the ability to control their creative work's distribution. Suddenly people don't have the right to decide how their works are released. Once. Again. You're putting the good of society over the rights of individuals. Need I inform you that no tyrannical force ever gained power by liberty.

Answered above. And you really need to let go of this control issue...

The author has more potential reasons... Because...?

No idea what you're trying to say here.

Ethics can't answer this because nothing is lost...?

Ethics can, and the ethics are clear: piracy is wrong because it infringes on the creator's rights. Done, in one sentence too.

And your entire view hinges on just an author being allowed in a free market, irregardless of the consequences.

I think you mean "regardless", in any case, yes the free market will solve the problem since it would be individual authors competing against each other using different distribution methods instead of the current system where an author must compete with himself against different distribution methods. You want to talk about efficiency, there is no efficiency in an author competing against themselves.

1) Every time I ask about protections, you point to tragedy of the commons. The question is "They have more reason to protect their own work... Because...?" And if they protect that, what does it mean for the system vs finding new ways to make money? The tragedy of the commons has yet to occur with digital resources, and I believe you know it. I've alluded before to the scarcity mindset. I believe I should link you to where it's defined. Just one place here [http://tinydancermba.blogspot.com/2008/03/abundance-vs-scarcity-mindset.html]

...if you have a scarcity mindset, your view of the world tells you that opportunity is limited and that you need to compete with others in order to achieve success. If you have an abundance mindset, your view tells you that there are plenty of opportunities available to you, so it will not hurt you to help others along the way.

What you seem to reason is that authors should try to protect their work, without finding new ways to do business (which is more a cornerstone to economics than sitting and coasting on past success). That's by creating an artificial scarcity in the market place (their copyright to shut down distribution channels. This also changes the dynamics of what a person expects from an author/creator and limits all they do. That doesn't sound like liberty nor a free market. It sounds like someone I wouldn't want to work with.

What I've been arguing is more people should allow more channels. And since it helps them, fans could distribute regardless of asking for permission. If the fans do what they do best (spread the news), and the author does what he does best, everyone is better off. That has NOTHING to do with any other system or impeding upon their rights. Not everyone can do it like I can, and they shouldn't. They're free to try it however they please. But the actual moral rightness that you seem to assert is that so long as I don't interfere with them (the fans) directly, they can do whatever they want to distribute media. That's liberty.
2) Ethics vs Economics, answered above
3) Authors still create. Artists still draw. Producers still produce. In all media, EVERY person who wants money works to outcompete themselves in some regard. You can't tell me that 10 years later, Joss Whedon would go back to Buffy to make it even better. Rather, he took those ideas and made other series such as Firefly or Doll Effect. To say that no person in entertainment wants to outcompete themselves is rather disingenuous.

Society benefits and yet you want to complain because people now have more choices and the artist has to compete in new ways to keep their work relevant.

A system used wrongly in which society benefits at the expense of others is not an ethical system.

Between the system being "good" and this, it's kind of hard to take it seriously that the way you envision the system, is how it can continue, when you still show no evidence of this. The system has always been a consumer's market. You have a lot to prove in saying that the consumer is wrong in their choices.

You hinge on the moral argument because you can't accept the fact that people use the art for various ways other than what you view as piracy.

Again you're not reading what I wrote, or you're not keeping an open mind as to what I'm truly saying. I allow people to create art in any way they desire, but the pirate takes art and uses it however they please. That is wrong.

Your argument does exactly one thing. It looks to piracy as a scapegoat and instant failure. Whether an artist makes art or not, if it doesn't sell, he can effectively say that piracy caused it. What's wrong is that it hinges on looking for a way to explain bad behavior on the part of the copyright holder, giving incentive to believe that their success is somehow guaranteed.

As my argument says, that derivative work or transformative work makes us far better off. No matter the industry, it's a lot better for more people to have a chance to create than waiting around for one person to make up their mind on a direction. Today's pirate is tomorrow's music maker, movie editor, or film director. The skills of making these works actually adds value to the original work. It's just in how you want to view it. It's not just the societal benefit that I show here, it's the added benefit to the author regardless of his position. As I've tried to tell you countless times, you don't know who your work may inspire. Sometimes, it is about letting go and seeing if you can inspire the next generation of artist. The control issue that you bring up is a false issue. An author or artist has not had full control of a work until it's been government protected, much to the detriment of all in the form of higher pricing and less choices. Such works to no one's benefit but the artist/author, making that a government backed monopoly. THAT is not a good thing, nor is it just.

[rant]

I understand the current state of things isn't the best. We are in a transition period of media distribution. I like remixes and mashups just as much as anyone else, but the cost of removing a creator's ownership is far worse than a system where individual creators can compete against each other.

Capitalism = competition

I know the media corporations have done a lot of wrong, and it is impractical if not impossible to ask permission from everyone along the way. I don't doubt that there is a problem, there's a big problem, but the key issue here is the solution. What solution are we going to take that is ethical, and doesn't hurt anyone's rights? Well the first is to expand fair use, allowing people manipulate excerpts of media. Another solution is to let the media corporation fail, or let their wallets get hit hard enough for them to understand the new epoch of media they're in. Copyright revision is definitely on the table, and emphasis on artists to use creative commons incentivizes creativity. Public domain could be expanded.

Don't disagree, but the ethics argument I still have an issue with.

Ethics do not matter on this, and you continue to fail to show why it's wrong other than your own moral imperative to say the authors are sancrosanct in their decisions

That is only because you haven't been listening. Read some of the things I wrote, and it's pretty clear. The objective facts are these: human beings have rights. One of those rights is the right to own property, labor, and the fruits of their work. These rights just happen to be protected by the Constitution. Not only is this reflected in our laws but also in our economic system. One particular right is a creator's right to profit form their work how they see fit. They are able to profit from their work by directly manipulating their work's distribution. They alone have the right to decide channels of distribution because again, they own the work, they stand to gain or lose from it, they have the right to profit from it. Any other person who distributes their work without the creator knowing or permitting it is infringing on their rights. I mean the ethics are clear.

We went over the right to own property. We also went over you conceding the issue of copyright being the same as property rights.

You're still confused on liberty and the system, and this shows exactly that confusion. First, IP laws were once only for 14 years. Their labor in making a book is just that. Theirs. But what I do, be it spreading the news of the book (fair use), making a book of my own as a parody(again, fair use), or making a copy is something that protects me(fair use yet again) from them as well. I put in my labor in different aspects and worked just as hard on these tangible goods. A story is protected speech. That doesn't change because someone made their story first. Expanded fair use would do a lot more for innovation than what the ethics view would do by taking down other people's work.

To then say that those rights need to be infringed for the good of the collective is going down a very dark road.

The gloom and doom hasn't worked for ten years. I doubt it'll work now.

The author HAS to outcompete themselves. I can't say it much better...

But who say's they HAVE to? Oh, the pirates. And who are the pirates to decide if the creator should compete with themselves? Again this is a violation of rights. Other creators have the right to create and therefore compete with the original creator. However someone taking the creator's work and forcing the creator to compete with themselves is not only a violation of the rights of the creator, but a violation of the voluntary market. I'm sorry but you are just wrong here in so many ways.

A capitalist market says that people compete for their own economic self interest. No one is interfering with the author save for their negotiations with the editors and publishers and their direct connection with the fans. Pirates do their own things but you either overestimate the effects of piracy on the negative scale or underestimate that people make their own choices in a voluntary market regardless of the rights of the creator.

Basically, taken to the logical conclusion you point out, if something violates the creator's rights, it's wrong. So putting an author's book in a library for others to use is wrong as well. Not a strawman, but you continue to use the same assertion of authors/artists being sancrosanct when it comes to copyright and their permissions, that's the main thing consistent in your argument that they have control to their own benefit at the behest of everyone else. That is not a "liberty" that is working right now. What is working is authors accepting the new paradigm and competing with themselves. I'm very surprised and disappointed that you've actually thrown out the argument "people don't have to compete". It's akin to saying Venus and Serena don't have to work hard to compete in Tennis.

If society benefits, the ethics does not matter in this regard.

Ooh, those are some words that can come back and bite you. Attempting to avoid a straw man I must say that your same argument can be used to support eugenics, or sterilization, or forced population control. That's an awesome idea there. Never mind people's rights, you know what's best for them - what's best for society.

Let's see... Tissue engineering uses stem cells [http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/10/ff_futureofbreasts/] (NSFW - borderline) especially after we've learned to use adult stem cells.

Police want to legalize drugs, thereby making society safer [http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php]

And because this one is me having fun with it, Ethical Decisions About Sharing Music Files in the P2P Environment [http://www.springerlink.com/content/r0u0023763h0m781/]

Strawmen are great when you try to make them say something I haven't said. *thumbs up* In terms of economics of piracy, they don't matter. Let's not try to make a strawman out of that, shall we?

they're not emotionally harmed

A psychic we have here. How do you know they're not emotionally harmed by it?

I read minds for $50 a pop. yeah, that should read "economic"

If too high, I go to a competitor (yes, a pirate is a competitor. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2653-Piracy]

The pirate is not a legitimate competitor in a market. Stop trying to justify their behavior.

Stop trying to dismiss them as if they aren't there. They are, you have to compete against them and make a better product. That's what the Piracy video on Extra Credits says as well. Ignoring them won't make them go away.

In ALL of this, all you've done is assert a moral view that does nothing but try to guilt people into not sharing.

Dammit do you even understand what I'm saying? In ALL of this, all you've done closed your mind to any understanding outside of your own biased opinion and justifications. You ignore the moral view because the moral view is clear: piracy is unethical, and not because it's "stealing". Sharing is not the same thing as piracy, and I don't guilt people into not sharing. I'd encourage people to share, but to share without harming anyone else. And yes, going against someone's fundamental rights is harming them.

My mind isn't closed. It's because you have nothing but a moral view where you go back to "but piracy is bad". You've brought nothing into the debate save ONE link to a game where they basically DDoSed themselves by not preparing for the server load. The liberty rights you assert, undermine the rights of consumers. Regardless of the distribution right you seem to want to assert for artists, it's still happening. I've actually shown you legal methods for people to get the same media and yet you would call it piracy even if it's legal. You've undermined your argument with all but this view that the best thing for creators is to fight the pirates who upload, who are doing their job for them, and who do it for free. You constantly want to say that all of this is immoral.

Ok... It's immoral, now what? Is that going to put one extra dollar on their plate? Is it helping to have the government enforce copyright law by looking up the IP address of one filesharer out of the MILLIONS on both public and private networks? Is it stopping piracy? Is the reality of the immorality (or what I'm thinking is a difference in values) causing anything to stop?

Further, I've discussed how the fundamental rights argument of "economic harm" is disingenuous. It's a slap in the face to the actual people who fight for the freedom to actually discuss these types of things. If we were in China regarding the great firewall, that'd be one thing. If this were Egypt and their fight, I would believe you. This is an argument over how people are trying to find better ways to profit. Such is the actual paradigm shift and not how they can burn a flag to show their discontent with the American system.

1) Artist has to outcompete themselves in all industries

Wrong there. No industry forces a creator to out compete themselves, only their competitors.

Wrong. A creator makes something new, it's outcompeting themselves as well as their competitors. Records begot 8track begot cassette tapes begot CDs begot mp3s.

Further, videotape begot laserdisc begot DVD begot larger hard drives.

And to be thorough:
Piers Anthony (Xanth) begot Piers Anthony (Space Pirate) begot Piers Anthony(Mode). I can point to a lot of books and prove that if the series of books were good, it produced more books in the same vein.

3) A voluntary system does not ensure your success. It doesn't matter how you achieve it. But if you go for that success, it can be in a number of choices you make. Basically, the market doesn't care how you're successful. Just so long as you do it.

Wrong there. The free market has principals, and it is a fair game if the participants play by the same rules. For example a free market doesn't allow force or coercion, the very same actions that pirates undertake. Everything about the free market is voluntary, and piracy is not voluntary because it forces the creator to compete against themselves in a distribution network they did not want.

Great assertion, now back it up with data/proof. I'm still waiting from the last three times I've asked.

I should say the same for you. You've sent nothing to prove your own ideals other than "trust me because the moral argument is the right one".

Well, then reread what I wrote, because I have concise logic and reasoning for it on factual principals grounded in western ethics. Nowhere did I claim the moral high ground. I only put forward an argument in a moral context.

You repeated the same thing about 4 times with no economic data whatsoever... By stating that the author has more rights (which is the basic contention we have), you've effectively made the market weaker. If you're going by the Founding fathers, you should be very aware of Adam Smith's invisible hand theory. In essence it is "cooperation without coercion".

But right there, that's a free market---

Stop right there...

Spoiler

]
1.
the act of coercing; use of force or intimidation to obtain compliance.
2.
force or the power to use force in gaining compliance, as by a government or police force.

There is no force or intimidation in copyright infringement. No one's held a gun to your head or that of the author's. It just means they have no control of digital distribution.

I just don't like the abuse of the system and how it's gamed to basically destroy people through various means.

I don't like it either, but there are two sides to every story. Dismissing copyright without looking at the law itself, not just how it's used, is simplistic. It's just like the people who dismiss vaccines because they have rat brains in them, not knowing how the rat brains actually work, and how they're beneficial to creating immunity.

I could swear, I was showing some of the loopholes such as the ICE takedowns and their faulty reliance on drug seizure rules for copyright infringement...

Or even statutory damages which show really bad incentives for litigating copyright infringement...

Hmm... I could talk about the unintended consequences but that might be too much since I've been doing that for a while now.

The system and its damages need changing. The length needs to be shortened considerably. In order to see more innovative uses of Youtube and other filesharing sources, copyright needs to stop hanging over the heads of consumers. The actual innovations in music, literature, and books aren't coming from copyright litigation.

If the innovations are coming out independent of copyright, then obviously copyright wasn't holding them back. Logic.

If you really, really, REALLY want me to link examples of innovations that I haven't already linked, I could do so. The innovations are happening where the rules of copyright are weaker. Logic.

Online radio services prove that copyright does NOTHING to get an artist paid.

Copyright isn't about getting the artist paid, it's about giving the artist the right to choose HOW they get paid.

You might want to look at the effects of copyright on just the music industry for starters [http://books.google.com/books?id=y6MZdddVpesC&pg=PA140&lpg=PA140&dq=top%20200%20grossing%20US%20tours,%20ascap,%20bmi&source=bl&ots=S-4BenHrGr&sig=FQU5JHTqsXprazve4wlmnRRFos4&hl=en&ei=emenSpKIDYX6sQOP9_3CBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#v=onepage&q=&f=false]... ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC disagree with you. And the MPAA, the RIAA... There's more but with ASCAP, only paying the top 200 tours in the US, it's worth looking into what those long contracts in just the music and movie industry actually contained in older times vs now.

You can't tell me that what those people do with songs on their free time should be hindered by what the original owner desires. One reason that I love that place so much is the fact that those remixers changed all of those songs out of love for the game music industry. Imagine trying to find the original authors of ALL of the songs on that site then asking permission.

I love OCRemix too, and the issue is complex, but any conflict can be solved by retooling fair use and public domain. I never said that the law as it stands currently is good, I said that the principals of copyright are good.

I agree until the principles, where a smaller monopoly may work for a limited time, as the Founding fathers attended and more exceptions.

The reason I assert confirmation bias is from the content of your posts. I have not seen an open mind willing to consider or understand the arguments I make. I agree with you on a lot of things, like distribution channels that work, and how the law has gone too far, but I have not seen reciprocation from you. I have not seen a desire to really understand how human rights, property rights, and ethics factor into all of this, which was the primary purpose of my post here. Throughout the arguments the ethical responses have been "don't do it, it's wrong, it's like stealing", and those arguments are shallow for many reasons. My intent was to give an ethical/moral argument with actual ethical premises behind it. You have not picked up on that. You dismiss it entirely because you see piracy as an "economic issue" and the moral argument isn't an "economic issue". I have rebutted that before. Two wrongs don't make a right, and a wrong made for a greater good is still wrong.

The problem here is how you merge all three into one role which I can't get behind. I'll agree to disagree with you.

The human rights here aren't marginalized, neither are they trivialized by copyright infringement. Human rights is how we view, and share experiences. It's also how we treat each other. But to say that an author's human rights is infringed upon because of an economic issue is ludicrous. The only thing harmed by a download of media is the 1s and 0s on a hard drive. No one was shot, no witnesses have to be arraigned for a murder, and the end of the world hasn't happened because of piracy (despite the larger corporations stating otherwise)

I thought you had conceded the property rights point when it was effectively shown that what I legally own on tangible products has no regard for the copyright of the company (despite the EULA stating otherwise), yet you bring that falsity into the argument, to what purpose? We have established that right now, the laws of copyright are very strongly for authors, to the detriment of consumers (IE: fair use is nearly subverted by the DMCA, and the 9th circuit put a damper on the first sale doctrine a few months ago). Effectively, your wish is granted. Artists have a very strong pair of (dis)incentives to try to go for the statutory amounts as described in the DMCA. But less of them are doing that... In fact, most companies are backing away from these legal notices to enforce copyright (and the ones that are are getting slammed in other ways [Blizzard]). What's also happening is that with property rights, you have legal ownership of those tangible goods. I have effectively and consistently said they are not the same thing and should not be confused. You seem to again want to put them in the same category. The person still has hold of a copy of a song, or even the master copy. This, by no means, says that a pirate will take that from her when she has it in abundance. So no, property rights in this regard isn't a good argument.

Finally, the ethics factor. We have been discussing the economics factor and the result of the proposals, that I doubt you've thought about, by increasing the author's rights to such an extent as to control the market. This makes no sense when you have an abundance of a good. It's as if I have 2 bunnies that multiply exponentially in 3 days. Do you think someone would pay me $500 for 1 of them, when I have 2000 of them in plain sight? Yes, I should be paid, but if my asking price is too high, it can lead to a lot of negative results such as the buy just takes one since I technically won't miss it, or walk away from the deal. The point has been that all of the views on the ethics just don't hold up to that right there. When you take a step back and ask "is it wrong to take the bunny?", it's been the wrong question to ask. The better question is "why haven't I dropped the price to meet the new demand? And why, oh why don't I find a way to get rid of some of these bunnies?"

We now have one of the largest libraries in The Pirate Bay where, if I wanted, I could find damn near anything I could want regarding music, movies, or media. The paradigm hasn't shifted so much that if I have a show, I buy it on DVD and play it on my DVD player. But I'll be damned if I'm going to see the next episode of Spartacus without seeing last week's episode. Whether that's through viewing it through Netflix, streaming from a third party site, or a download, is my choice. No copyright owner can truly tell me what to do about that. What the larger copyright owners are doing is trying to limit consumer choice so that they can profit off of the limited choices. In all honest, that's the lazy way of doing business. Build up just enough to make a name, then litigation to keep down newcomers. The most honest way? Outcompete yourself and never stop doing so [http://blog.runkeeper.com/the-team/welcome-nike-thanks-for-coming-part-two]. If you're focused on innovation, everything else comes to you. But if you're focused on the principles of piracy, it fails on close inspection because it can't answer all the economic data that proves otherwise. The math tells us, people fileshare. They want to share media in the most efficient way possible. What can a creator do to get it there and compete with the free offerings? Those are the questions you should ask.

 

[The Last Parade]

If I write a piece of music, and I put work into it, I want to be able to control how my art is used. I want to be able to make a living off of my art. I dont agree with piracy, the only exception is when what I offer cant be acquired by any other means (no excuse for the western world)

I hate piracy, I hate what it does to the music and games industry and I hate the way that brats try and justify that the music or game isn't worth having and then download it regardless

 

[Gindil]

If I write a piece of music, and I put work into it, I want to be able to control how my art is used. I want to be able to make a living off of my art. I dont agree with piracy, the only exception is when what I offer cant be acquired by any other means (no excuse for the western world)

... How does anyone control how their work is used? It's like saying Leonardo da Vinci can control how the Mona Lisa is marketed after he painted it?

I hate piracy, I hate what it does to the music and games industry and I hate the way that brats try and justify that the music or game isn't worth having and then download it regardless

The music industry has increased in choices...

Same with the games industry...

How is that a bad thing?

 

[KalosCast]

Ya know, with all of the talk about piracy, I bet people don't even understand what it is. Automatically, we assume it's a bad thing for no reason other than we don't understand what it does. At least, that's my belief.
Recently, I have two great examples of what copyright infringement does:

You think piracy is a good thing and your proof is two things that aren't piracy.

Wat?

 

[Gindil]

Ya know, with all of the talk about piracy, I bet people don't even understand what it is. Automatically, we assume it's a bad thing for no reason other than we don't understand what it does. At least, that's my belief.
Recently, I have two great examples of what copyright infringement does:

You think piracy is a good thing and your proof is two things that aren't piracy.

Wat?

If you've been following the arguments, piracy = copyright infringement.

Basically, if you don't get permission from the original copyright holders, you owe X amount of dollars in legal fees. That is, unless you give away the music.

There's also games such as Mother 3 that can only be found online since it will never come to an American audience.

Finally, I would also look into Cave Story as something that shows piracy helping out an author.

 

[KalosCast]

If you've been following the arguments, piracy = copyright infringement.

Basically, if you don't get permission from the original copyright holders, you owe X amount of dollars in legal fees. That is, unless you give away the music.

There's also games such as Mother 3 that can only be found online since it will never come to an American audience.

Finally, I would also look into Cave Story as something that shows piracy helping out an author.

Words have definitions and you don't get a free license to change them.

Either way, there's definitely evidence that piracy doesn't hurt industries nearly as much as the industries like to claim they do (to the overwhelming surprise of absolutely nobody), I've actually written a number of papers about the issue, but that's still a far cry from all piracy being inherently beneficial to all people involved.

 

[Gindil]

If you've been following the arguments, piracy = copyright infringement.

Basically, if you don't get permission from the original copyright holders, you owe X amount of dollars in legal fees. That is, unless you give away the music.

There's also games such as Mother 3 that can only be found online since it will never come to an American audience.

Finally, I would also look into Cave Story as something that shows piracy helping out an author.

Words have definitions and you don't get a free license to change them.

Either way, there's definitely evidence that piracy doesn't hurt industries nearly as much as the industries like to claim they do (to the overwhelming surprise of absolutely nobody), I've actually written a number of papers about the issue, but that's still a far cry from all piracy being inherently beneficial to all people involved.

I would argue it's more a control issue [http://torrentfreak.com/nothing-new-under-the-copyright-eclipsed-sun-110218/].

Odd thing is, the ones that want to control imaginary property the most, gain the most from controlling how others use it. The arguments have been:

Ethics of piracy (which isn't really a moral issue, but that's another debate)
Copyright infringement and its benefits
Control of copyright law
Artists becoming mini monopolists

Piracy has actually done a lot to share works that can't otherwise be shared. The negative view tends to say that piracy harms artists and authors because people benefit from sharing the 1s and 0s.

The beneficial view (one I'll support a lot more) tends to say that piracy spreads information about artists, authors, etc, to the point that they have more opportunities in various areas.

I tend to think about it like this:

If I'm a musician in the 14th century, I would have to play my instrument to an audience and repeat it every time I wanted to be paid. I had to worry about someone using my song, so I would keep a repertoire of songs on hand and continue competing.

Nowadays, I'm free to make the songs and sell CDs for them so long as people want them. I have a back catalogue and I don't have to remember them all off the top of my head. There's other ways to differentiate myself and bigger venues I can play in. I'd like to think that there's more opportunities for artists than what piracy supposedly takes away.

-E- Piracy, as a definition, came about because of Jack Valenti. If we're talking actual piracy, everyone that's a pirate would have a peg leg, eye patch and a parrot. If you want the legal definition, here ya go:

Link [http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/p050.htm]

PIRACY (BY U.S. CITIZEN)
Whoever, being a citizen of the U.S., commits any murder or robbery, or any act of hostility against the U.S., or against any citizen thereof, on the high seas, under color of any commission from any foreign prince, or state, or on pretense of authority from any person, is a pirate, and shall be imprisoned for life. 18 USC

 

[KalosCast]

Odd thing is, the ones that want to control imaginary property the most, gain the most from controlling how others use it.

This isn't an odd thing at all that the people who's profits are hurt by piracy are the people railing against it. This is like saying it's odd that people who's houses are on fire are the people who most demand firefighters. Alternatively, this is like saying it's odd that nearly every piracy advocate also benefits from free music, movies, and video games.

Piracy has actually done a lot to share works that can't otherwise be shared. The negative view tends to say that piracy harms artists and authors because people benefit from sharing the 1s and 0s.

The beneficial view (one I'll support a lot more) tends to say that piracy spreads information about artists, authors, etc, to the point that they have more opportunities in various areas.

This argument only supports people who aren't already well-known. These artists have the potential to gain notoriety from file-sharing networks. However, your argument conveniently ignores people who already have dedicated fanbases. Works by these people are unsurprisingly the most sought-after works through illicit means. If you notice, any evidence for this argument has never been for anything other than small independent artists.

This argument also only really works in the cases of music, where there's a high enough profit margin that the sales lost from piracy are less-felt than say, the video game industry which has much higher costs and a much lower profit margin. Excluding the odd case of small independents.

I tend to think about it like this:

If I'm a musician in the 14th century, I would have to play my instrument to an audience and repeat it every time I wanted to be paid. I had to worry about someone using my song, so I would keep a repertoire of songs on hand and continue competing.

Nowadays, I'm free to make the songs and sell CDs for them so long as people want them. I have a back catalogue and I don't have to remember them all off the top of my head. There's other ways to differentiate myself and bigger venues I can play in. I'd like to think that there's more opportunities for artists than what piracy supposedly takes away.

Yes, and this is a great thing for spreading and preserving works of art. However, there are no numbers to suggest that illicit distribution has any impact on ticket sales for live shows, making this little more than a red herring.

 

[Nurb]

In all honesty, no one really knows how much piracy affects larger companies because they never show any numbers to prove anything, only saying it's really affecting them

 

[KalosCast]

In all honesty, no one really knows how much piracy affects larger companies because they never show any numbers to prove anything, only saying it's really affecting them

The Institute for Policy Innovation actually has a report out about the revenue lost to the music industry due to piracy. However, the numbers are inflated by (at least) 400%. So... take that how you will.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

If someone else created it, and you want it, buy it.

I've seen all sorts of clever rhetoric and semantics but I've never yet had it explained to me how taking something that isn't yours without paying for it isn't stealing.

Oh, and the Escapist don't like it when you support piracy on the forums, so this should soon be shut down.

 

[Nurb]

In all honesty, no one really knows how much piracy affects larger companies because they never show any numbers to prove anything, only saying it's really affecting them

The Institute for Policy Innovation actually has a report out about the revenue lost to the music industry due to piracy. However, the numbers are inflated by (at least) 400%. So... take that how you will.

Yea, no one is really genuine, they're making the numbers look bad to make a point, plus people are less willing to support the old system where companies make more money than the artists.

But I wish piracy had an effect; I want EA, Activision and Ubisoft to go bankrupt haha

 

[Lilani]

Copyright infringement and piracy are not the same thing. And both problems need to be solved separately. Pirates need to learn that there is no free lunch and they can't have everything in the world on tap without consequences. And companies that think fanmade content celebrating their works are scum that need to be whitewashed out of existence need to learn how to identify a compliment when they see one. For example, Viacom needs to learn that those kids who make "Top 5 Spongebob Moments" videos on YouTube aren't trying to screw them over. They're just showing the world how much they love Spongebob.

 

[Nurb]

If someone else created it, and you want it, buy it.

I've seen all sorts of clever rhetoric and semantics but I've never yet had it explained to me how taking something that isn't yours without paying for it isn't stealing.

Oh, and the Escapist don't like it when you support piracy on the forums, so this should soon be shut down.

Or you just haven't accepted that theft removes from a quantity, and piracy is copying existing content, making an "extra". That's why it's called piracy and not theft, and not treated the same as someone shoplifting.

 

[KalosCast]

Yea, no one is really genuine, they're making the numbers look bad to make a point, plus people are less willing to support the old system where companies make more money than the artists.

But I wish piracy had an effect; I want EA, Activision and Ubisoft to go bankrupt haha

Yeah, you'd be seeing some pretty lean years from the video game industry if that happened. Activision includes Blizzard, EA includes Bioware, Mythic and Criterion. Activision includes Blizzard, Sierra, Infinity Ward, and Treyarch. Ubisoft has a ton of self-branded studios, along with Massive.

Sure, they're dicks, but they're dicks that make really popular games.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

If someone else created it, and you want it, buy it.

I've seen all sorts of clever rhetoric and semantics but I've never yet had it explained to me how taking something that isn't yours without paying for it isn't stealing.

Oh, and the Escapist don't like it when you support piracy on the forums, so this should soon be shut down.

Or you just haven't accepted that theft removes from a quantity, and piracy is copying existing content, making an "extra". That's why it's called piracy and not theft, and not treated the same as someone shoplifting.

Theft is sometimes used as informal shorthand to refer to stealing from property, but the term actually refers in criminal law to the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely given consent.

Intellectual Property as defined under most copyright law counts as another person's property, and even if it didn't the game would belong to the developers, the publishers, the stores which stock it.

Has the designer given his free consent to take his game without paying for it? The it's theft. Theft is not removal from a quantity, burglary, looting, robbery etc are, but theft itself is just the wider concept of taking things that aren't yours without paying for them.

IE. Stealing.