Re: Re: Re: How Symbiotic Piracy Works, and why it's immoral
Oh, the old, "If he has nothing to hide, then he has nothing to fear" chestnut! What a load of shit! If he's innocent he shouldn't have to let them subject him to extradition. Only a complete moron would let that go without a fight. Assenting to the authorities simply to appease their suspicions just invites them to walk over everyone and ignore the fact that innocent people have the right to not be harassed by the law! What if the law were to accuse you of ethereal crimes that you are innocent of? Would you allow them to proceed? Would you let them violate your privacy so they can confirm that you're not a criminal? How would you like it if the police just raided your house at random to do just that? Every time you suggest that people you think are obviously guilty should be subjected to that, you also suggest it be allowed to be done to everyone else, merely upon accusation.
"Well, first, I CAN claim that Dotcom is GUILTY without a court trial. The evidence was all over his site: infringing content plus income from advertising and premium speeds. There's no doubt on that point, kids. It's not as though you and I haven't seen the details."
That's not evidence, that's your fucking opinion! Megaupload is a business and like all businesses, they operate to earn profit. So they find ways to do that. Just because MU makes money doesn't mean that the actions of their customers adjoins MU as an accomplice to infringement. MU is blameless for the actions of their customers. If you want attack and accuse someone of being a dirty fucking pirate, why don't you point that avarice at the people that fucking uploaded that content?
Re: How Symbiotic Piracy Works, and why it's immoral
Ah, I see. So anyone that isn't actively trying to stamp out infringement is actively promoting and profiting from it? Nice false dichotomy you got there. Be careful, it looks a bit fragile.
However, the car analogy is often used to point out that there is a used market for every kind of good and that the game industry is not special nor exempt from that fact. Used games impact the market just the same as any other used goods. So they trot out the "A game is not the same as a car!" excuse.
EA can no more complain about used games than Ford can complain about used cars. Each has a second hand market and each has to accept that. Though, software developers everywhere try to get around the right of first sale by claiming that you don't "own" your copy, it's only a license despite the fact that section 109 of the copyright act states that you are permitted to sell the copy you own without authorization. It's really just semantic sophistry. They claim you don't own the software, which is true, but you do own the specific copy and you may sell it granted that you transfer your copy in whole and unedited to the buyer.
Or, they could figure out a business model that let's them secure their compensation before they publish the game. If they made their money that way, it wouldn't matter if they were purchased new, used, or just simply copied for free. Anybody that publishes content that they want to be paid for before making sure they will get paid is a moron and deserves to lose money.
"When you sell a car, you get less money for it because its used. Its overall lifespan and value has decreased. The person buying your car is getting a less valuable product than you got when you bought the car brand new. It's got miles on it, maybe some dents and dings. There are unknown mechanical problems lurking under the hood that the new buyer may have to address.
There is a tangible value disparity between a brand new car, and a used car that accompanies the differences in price. However a video game that is used is exactly the same product as it was when it was new. The programming does not deteriorate. Bugs and crashes aren't going to suddenly pop up due to age. No matter how many times the game is resold, the used product remains identical to the new product.
If you walked into a car dealership and there was a brand new car sitting there for the same price as a used, beat up model of the same car, anyone in their right mind is going to take the new car for the used car price. And it's the same with used video games. Why would someone pay $60 for a game when they can get the exact same game for $40?
Except now your money is going to GameStop, not the people that made the game.
Now you can say "But they already got their money from the original sale! Car companies don't get a cut every time someone sells a used car!" That's true. But somebody shopping for a used car is not in the market for a new car. A used car buyer is not "stealing" a potential new car sale. However a used game buyer is stealing a potential new game sale. So whereas the developer might have sold two games, they have now sold one, and GameStop has sold one. It's not about ownership or "its my property", it's about used games presenting a threat to new game sales."
It amuses me (actually it irritates me) when I hear this ignorant line of logic. It would be applicable if you could make copies of the game disc, but you can't (well, you aren't permitted). So, as the game gets worn, scratched, etc., the disc it's inseparably tied to degrades. What's more, the game also loses value. Madden '06 doesn't bring in the same trade-in/sale value that Madden '13 will as well as the many CoD titles go down in value as you go back to earlier releases. This blind argument focuses on the nature of binary data and ignores the physical hardware it's tied to like a gas station bathroom key. They want very badly for their industry to be a special case that gets special treatment.
"Now, you can argue the morality of used games all you want, but the bottom line is that developers feel it takes money away from their business, and so they have every right to try and combat it. The most definitive thing you can do is simply not buy the console if it's a big deal to you, but let's be honest... you were clearly going to buy the games used if that's the case, so the developers won't know the difference. They weren't getting your money either way."
Claiming that used games takes away revenue is no different than saying that used cars take away revenue. A used car sale could just as easily be equated to a lost sale for a new car. After all, if you buy used, it negates the possibility of buying new (for most people with limited means, like the 99% of us). The reason a person buys a used car is the same reason they buy a used game. They want an item, but they don't want to, or can't, pay full price.
The second part of this morality argument, not buying the console doesn't matter because you buy used and they won't get any money regardless, that's just stupid. Refusing to even buy the console means that you won't buy any of those games, used or new. So they've missed out on an opportunity to lure a customer to buy new. Now, they won't buy the games at all, unless it exists on a platform they do have. So, buying used might not put money in developer's pockets, but not buying the console at all negates any chance of ever turning that around.
"wrong or right, it's illegal, that's all that matters.
No one cares if you agree with laws or not, lots of criminals clearly do not agree with laws, but that does not mean they are not bound by those laws."
Laws are not supreme nor should they be blindly obeyed. If a law is wrong, then it is the duty of the citizens to disobey that law and this law is wrong. It doesn't make me a bad person or a criminal simply because I oppose a bad law. It was once illegal to help runaway slaves to escape, should people that violated that law be branded criminals and subjected to the full punitive action assigned to that law? "The law is the law" is just an excuse for people to commit atrocities with impunity.
"Also because you have some stupid definition of Intellectual Property does not mean it is any less real or valid to the person who owns it."
I'm not the one making up stupid definitions of what is property. Those would be groups that promote IP concepts. "Intellectual property" is a made-up term meant to serve in a semantic battle that sways minds to support the copyright side by appealing to people's attachment to the basic concepts of property.
"The general population and the law recognises IP, and recognises it's validity and reality."
That's completely, categorically false. There is no law that defines a concept of "intellectual property". I know, I've studied the copyright act and read it's definitions. IP isn't one of them. Even in chapters 9 and 13 of the copyright act, the property rights assigned pertain to the specific design that the owner possesses, not the expressions inherent in the design. Copyright only assigns rights to distribution of a work; it does not assign ownership of the work itself.
As far as the general population goes, that's just your baseless assumption. There's more to the network of sharing media than just the torrents and file lockers. There has always been the networks of friends and family privately sharing amongst themselves completely invisible to the public internet at large. People share media through IM, private SFTP, email, and other private non-peering networks.
What amuses me is that I can back up my assertions with verifiable facts and data, but you make your claims based purely on conjecture and assumption. My conclusions fit the observable data, while you try to twist the data to fit your conclusions.
There is no such thing as "Intellectual Property". That's a made-up term aimed to make people view copyright differently.
Internet freedom is about defending the right to free speech on the internet. So long as certain types of speech (copyrights) are treated like property, our freedom of speech is being infringed upon. It goes against very core concept of freedom of speech to say that there are certain speech I can't use because someone "owns" it. If speech is the natural right of every human being, then applying property concepts to certain speech is a clear violation of that right. But people like you will put property rights above all others.
No, these attacks aren't frequent, only their news coverage is frequent. There has been a rise in news coverage of school shootings, but guess what! School shootings are on the decline. In fact, many crimes that are such fodder for news outlets are actually declining as they crank up their coverage. There's a saying in the news biz, "if it bleeds, it leads". It's all FUD and none of it is as real as the news portrays it.
"Just because YOU CAN copy or steal something off the internet, does not make it legal for you to do that."
It may be illegal, but it sure as hell isn't wrong. It's not anybody's property, it's everyone's right to say anything and everything on the internet. That includes creative works, because they are a form of speech and nobody has the right to violate my natural right to speech just because they have the foolish notion that they can "own" that speech. To all who think they can own the content they create, you disgust me.
Re: Too many thieves and pirates break ANY business model.
I do think copying and sharing "someone else's" content is moral. In fact, sharing content is morally superior to hoarding it to leverage it for profit. I also don't ascribe any ownership to any content I might produce because it's not really mine, it's built on the common wealth of culture that belongs to every thinking being in existence. It's not mine nor any other person's property. Everything I have, or will, personally publish is, as far as I'm concerned, automatically part of the public domain. I'm not so stupid to think that I can make money by going against human nature's compulsion to share knowledge and culture. I know that if what I do is worth paying for, I can get paid for doing it. It's called being paid for labor. Idiots like you want to get paid for a product that doesn't exist. And what of the content I produce? It's advertising for my value as a content creator, so that people may know what I'm able to provide them. Content I publish isn't what's valuable, I'm what's valuable. If there is no me, there is no content created by me.
So, I have no fears about people sharing content I create because I will never support my income on that platform.
It would only eliminate centralized sources. Only sites and links would be gone, but there would still be tools out there that don't rely on fixed links and sites. There are pure p2p tools that aggregate their indices without a centralized server or link. They peer the index to fellow peers and the user searches through the index for content. No servers, no link required. Tools like Tribler make this possible. Once these tools are published, there's no way to make them disappear. The internet never forgets.
They could close down The Pirate Bay every other p2p site, but the genie is out of the bottle. There is nothing they can do short of shutting down the entire internet that will stop sharing of content. Since that will never happen, they're just pissing in the wind. It's war is over, they lost. What's left are some flailing corpses unwilling to accept the fact that they are dead.
What are you talking about? Haven't you heard of The Pirate Party? And the reason they haven't accomplished that goal is because the opposition has way more money, which is the only thing that talks in government. After all, money has been deemed speech and that means the *IAA have more speech than any grass roots org does.
Yes it does violate my right to speech. It's disturbing that you can say that and believe it. You don't have an exclusive right to "your" speech and neither do I have one to "my" speech. I can reuse any other person's speech any way I like, because that's how speech works. That's my human right. Any being that has the capacity to communicate has that right.
This is a brazen attempt to censor someone that is using speech that is the supposed "property" of someone else and they're trying to do it by throwing the baby out with the bath water or culling the herd to get one sick cattle. I find it reprehensible and despicable that people accept the idea the some speech can be owned and grant people the power to censor others from using that speech because of monetary concerns. Copyright is not about the profitability, or the enabling of, a particular business model. Copyright was concerned with one thing: greater access to a greater supply of creative and educational works so that others can use those to create even more works. However, we don't enjoy such a benefit, we are beholden to abide by overreaching property rights that have been insidiously obtained for the exclusive benefit of rent seekers like the publishing corporations in total contradiction to free speech. Speech is the inalienable right of every intelligent being capable of symbolic interaction. No one, and I mean NO ONE, deserves to subvert or abridge that right for any reason.
The whole reason publishers need the copyright laws to exist as they do is because the publishers themselves do not offer anything of value that is exclusive or scarce. They exploit the people that do the real work so they can collect income because they merely "own" something. The people they pay to create works already provided the exclusive and scarce value in content: the labor applied to the content's creation. They use their vast supply of money to exploit hard-working people so they can turn that money into more money, all without adding anything of real value. To do this, they establish laws that create the illusion of scarcity so that they can sell something that does not merit a market price. If ideas were worth money, the deluge of ideas coming at the publishing corporations would be bought up at a feverish pace, but ideas are worth shit. What's worth money is how you can execute that idea into an expression. If you execute well, people will respond. If not, you'll be ignored.
So, this whole idea of censoring free speech to silence a few people violating their ill-gotten property rights is just ethically disgusting. Nobody deserves nor needs copyright since it has no redeeming qualities. Any argument made for the existence of copyright can be countered by adapting business strategies to fit the situation. If you don't want people to get your works for free, then don't publish them. I guarantee you that is the only way you'll avoid anybody copying your works. Publishing is the first step to sharing content. However, the only person that will ever know about your work is you.
And you're a child. Calling someone gay? Really? How old are you that you'd think accusing someone of being a homosexual was a mature way to respond? Calling someone gay isn't even an insult. Either you are and you accept it or you're not and you're secure in your sexuality. Calling someone gay to insult them is like calling someone blonde.
On the post: New Zealand High Court Orders Kiwi Police & FBI To Return Seized Hard Drives To Kim Dotcom
Re: Re: Re: How Symbiotic Piracy Works, and why it's immoral
"Well, first, I CAN claim that Dotcom is GUILTY without a court trial. The evidence was all over his site: infringing content plus income from advertising and premium speeds. There's no doubt on that point, kids. It's not as though you and I haven't seen the details."
That's not evidence, that's your fucking opinion! Megaupload is a business and like all businesses, they operate to earn profit. So they find ways to do that. Just because MU makes money doesn't mean that the actions of their customers adjoins MU as an accomplice to infringement. MU is blameless for the actions of their customers. If you want attack and accuse someone of being a dirty fucking pirate, why don't you point that avarice at the people that fucking uploaded that content?
On the post: New Zealand High Court Orders Kiwi Police & FBI To Return Seized Hard Drives To Kim Dotcom
Re: How Symbiotic Piracy Works, and why it's immoral
On the post: Reports Of Xbox One's Handling Of Used Games Mobilizes Playstation Fans
Re: Re: Re:
EA can no more complain about used games than Ford can complain about used cars. Each has a second hand market and each has to accept that. Though, software developers everywhere try to get around the right of first sale by claiming that you don't "own" your copy, it's only a license despite the fact that section 109 of the copyright act states that you are permitted to sell the copy you own without authorization. It's really just semantic sophistry. They claim you don't own the software, which is true, but you do own the specific copy and you may sell it granted that you transfer your copy in whole and unedited to the buyer.
On the post: Reports Of Xbox One's Handling Of Used Games Mobilizes Playstation Fans
Re: Re: It's a nice dream
On the post: Reports Of Xbox One's Handling Of Used Games Mobilizes Playstation Fans
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Reports Of Xbox One's Handling Of Used Games Mobilizes Playstation Fans
Re:
There is a tangible value disparity between a brand new car, and a used car that accompanies the differences in price. However a video game that is used is exactly the same product as it was when it was new. The programming does not deteriorate. Bugs and crashes aren't going to suddenly pop up due to age. No matter how many times the game is resold, the used product remains identical to the new product.
If you walked into a car dealership and there was a brand new car sitting there for the same price as a used, beat up model of the same car, anyone in their right mind is going to take the new car for the used car price. And it's the same with used video games. Why would someone pay $60 for a game when they can get the exact same game for $40?
Except now your money is going to GameStop, not the people that made the game.
Now you can say "But they already got their money from the original sale! Car companies don't get a cut every time someone sells a used car!" That's true. But somebody shopping for a used car is not in the market for a new car. A used car buyer is not "stealing" a potential new car sale. However a used game buyer is stealing a potential new game sale. So whereas the developer might have sold two games, they have now sold one, and GameStop has sold one. It's not about ownership or "its my property", it's about used games presenting a threat to new game sales."
It amuses me (actually it irritates me) when I hear this ignorant line of logic. It would be applicable if you could make copies of the game disc, but you can't (well, you aren't permitted). So, as the game gets worn, scratched, etc., the disc it's inseparably tied to degrades. What's more, the game also loses value. Madden '06 doesn't bring in the same trade-in/sale value that Madden '13 will as well as the many CoD titles go down in value as you go back to earlier releases. This blind argument focuses on the nature of binary data and ignores the physical hardware it's tied to like a gas station bathroom key. They want very badly for their industry to be a special case that gets special treatment.
"Now, you can argue the morality of used games all you want, but the bottom line is that developers feel it takes money away from their business, and so they have every right to try and combat it. The most definitive thing you can do is simply not buy the console if it's a big deal to you, but let's be honest... you were clearly going to buy the games used if that's the case, so the developers won't know the difference. They weren't getting your money either way."
Claiming that used games takes away revenue is no different than saying that used cars take away revenue. A used car sale could just as easily be equated to a lost sale for a new car. After all, if you buy used, it negates the possibility of buying new (for most people with limited means, like the 99% of us). The reason a person buys a used car is the same reason they buy a used game. They want an item, but they don't want to, or can't, pay full price.
The second part of this morality argument, not buying the console doesn't matter because you buy used and they won't get any money regardless, that's just stupid. Refusing to even buy the console means that you won't buy any of those games, used or new. So they've missed out on an opportunity to lure a customer to buy new. Now, they won't buy the games at all, unless it exists on a platform they do have. So, buying used might not put money in developer's pockets, but not buying the console at all negates any chance of ever turning that around.
On the post: Reports Of Xbox One's Handling Of Used Games Mobilizes Playstation Fans
Re: Re: Re: Not quite right...
On the post: In Defense Of Digital Freedom: It's Time To Get Beyond 'Cyber' Hyperbole
Re: Re: Re:
No one cares if you agree with laws or not, lots of criminals clearly do not agree with laws, but that does not mean they are not bound by those laws."
Laws are not supreme nor should they be blindly obeyed. If a law is wrong, then it is the duty of the citizens to disobey that law and this law is wrong. It doesn't make me a bad person or a criminal simply because I oppose a bad law. It was once illegal to help runaway slaves to escape, should people that violated that law be branded criminals and subjected to the full punitive action assigned to that law? "The law is the law" is just an excuse for people to commit atrocities with impunity.
"Also because you have some stupid definition of Intellectual Property does not mean it is any less real or valid to the person who owns it."
I'm not the one making up stupid definitions of what is property. Those would be groups that promote IP concepts. "Intellectual property" is a made-up term meant to serve in a semantic battle that sways minds to support the copyright side by appealing to people's attachment to the basic concepts of property.
"The general population and the law recognises IP, and recognises it's validity and reality."
That's completely, categorically false. There is no law that defines a concept of "intellectual property". I know, I've studied the copyright act and read it's definitions. IP isn't one of them. Even in chapters 9 and 13 of the copyright act, the property rights assigned pertain to the specific design that the owner possesses, not the expressions inherent in the design. Copyright only assigns rights to distribution of a work; it does not assign ownership of the work itself.
As far as the general population goes, that's just your baseless assumption. There's more to the network of sharing media than just the torrents and file lockers. There has always been the networks of friends and family privately sharing amongst themselves completely invisible to the public internet at large. People share media through IM, private SFTP, email, and other private non-peering networks.
What amuses me is that I can back up my assertions with verifiable facts and data, but you make your claims based purely on conjecture and assumption. My conclusions fit the observable data, while you try to twist the data to fit your conclusions.
On the post: In Defense Of Digital Freedom: It's Time To Get Beyond 'Cyber' Hyperbole
Re:
Internet freedom is about defending the right to free speech on the internet. So long as certain types of speech (copyrights) are treated like property, our freedom of speech is being infringed upon. It goes against very core concept of freedom of speech to say that there are certain speech I can't use because someone "owns" it. If speech is the natural right of every human being, then applying property concepts to certain speech is a clear violation of that right. But people like you will put property rights above all others.
No, these attacks aren't frequent, only their news coverage is frequent. There has been a rise in news coverage of school shootings, but guess what! School shootings are on the decline. In fact, many crimes that are such fodder for news outlets are actually declining as they crank up their coverage. There's a saying in the news biz, "if it bleeds, it leads". It's all FUD and none of it is as real as the news portrays it.
"Just because YOU CAN copy or steal something off the internet, does not make it legal for you to do that."
It may be illegal, but it sure as hell isn't wrong. It's not anybody's property, it's everyone's right to say anything and everything on the internet. That includes creative works, because they are a form of speech and nobody has the right to violate my natural right to speech just because they have the foolish notion that they can "own" that speech. To all who think they can own the content they create, you disgust me.
On the post: RIAA: The Copyright Reform We Need Is To Make Everyone Else Copyright Cops
Re: Too many thieves and pirates break ANY business model.
So, I have no fears about people sharing content I create because I will never support my income on that platform.
On the post: RIAA: The Copyright Reform We Need Is To Make Everyone Else Copyright Cops
Re: Re: Turnabout is fair play
They could close down The Pirate Bay every other p2p site, but the genie is out of the bottle. There is nothing they can do short of shutting down the entire internet that will stop sharing of content. Since that will never happen, they're just pissing in the wind. It's war is over, they lost. What's left are some flailing corpses unwilling to accept the fact that they are dead.
On the post: VOD Service Acetrax Shutting Down, Forcing Customers Through DRM Hoops To Retain Their Purchased Movies
Re: DRM is about control not Piracy
On the post: Kim Dotcom Threatens To Sue Google, Facebook And Twitter Over 2-Factor Authentication Patent If They Don't Help Him
Re: Read for comprehension!
On the post: Kim Dotcom Threatens To Sue Google, Facebook And Twitter Over 2-Factor Authentication Patent If They Don't Help Him
Re: Re: Re: Re: Is that it?
On the post: Modest Proposal: Going Piracy Neutral
Re:
On the post: House Judiciary Committee Sets Up First Hearing On Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Congress shall make no law...
On the post: Swedish Prosecutor Claims Registrar Of .se Domains An 'Accomplice' In Infringement Because Of Pirate Bay Domain
Re:
On the post: Swedish Prosecutor Claims Registrar Of .se Domains An 'Accomplice' In Infringement Because Of Pirate Bay Domain
Re:
On the post: Swedish Prosecutor Claims Registrar Of .se Domains An 'Accomplice' In Infringement Because Of Pirate Bay Domain
More of the same.
The whole reason publishers need the copyright laws to exist as they do is because the publishers themselves do not offer anything of value that is exclusive or scarce. They exploit the people that do the real work so they can collect income because they merely "own" something. The people they pay to create works already provided the exclusive and scarce value in content: the labor applied to the content's creation. They use their vast supply of money to exploit hard-working people so they can turn that money into more money, all without adding anything of real value. To do this, they establish laws that create the illusion of scarcity so that they can sell something that does not merit a market price. If ideas were worth money, the deluge of ideas coming at the publishing corporations would be bought up at a feverish pace, but ideas are worth shit. What's worth money is how you can execute that idea into an expression. If you execute well, people will respond. If not, you'll be ignored.
So, this whole idea of censoring free speech to silence a few people violating their ill-gotten property rights is just ethically disgusting. Nobody deserves nor needs copyright since it has no redeeming qualities. Any argument made for the existence of copyright can be countered by adapting business strategies to fit the situation. If you don't want people to get your works for free, then don't publish them. I guarantee you that is the only way you'll avoid anybody copying your works. Publishing is the first step to sharing content. However, the only person that will ever know about your work is you.
On the post: Sophisticatedjanedoe / FightCopyrightTrolls Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: There you go