Yet Another Study Shows That Students Inherently Know That File Sharing Is Not Theft
from the it-just-isn't dept
While folks like Vice President Biden continue to repeat the myth that infringement is no different than theft, and pretend that we’re just one good education campaign away from having “the kids” all realize this, it’s time to recognize this just isn’t true. Infringement and theft are inherently different in many different ways, and no “education campaign” can make kids deny this reality. The massive SSRC study we’ve spoken about a few times made this point, and now Copycense points us to yet another study (and this is not the first one like this that we’ve seen) showing that students recognize that shoplifting a CD and downloading a song are simply not the same thing.
Why? The very nature of music piracy is likely the largest obstacle to curbing it, the authors say. There is no risk of physical harm to a victim and no physical object as a target — making it easier to deduce that digital music theft is harming no one at all. Also, there is widespread social support for the behavior within the internet community and on college campuses.
As much as the industry wants to believe that if they keep repeating that it’s the same as theft, people will believe it, kids are smart enough to recognize that making a copy of something is quite different than depriving someone of a physical object. In the initial case, no one is missing anything. That doesn’t make it legal, but it certainly makes it clear that arguments around “educating” students that it’s the same thing as “theft” aren’t going to work. The kids know it’s not true.
Filed Under: copying, copyright, file sharing, theft
Comments on “Yet Another Study Shows That Students Inherently Know That File Sharing Is Not Theft”
Educating them that the damage it does is equivalent is the goal. But the only way to do that is to put laws in place that provide adequate punishments for transgressors.
Laws left unenforced are not laws at all.
Re: Re:
But to do that, surely there would have to be some evidence that there is damage at all as a result, never mind damage of an equivalent level.
Let’s all agree that when such evidence exists we will then crowdsource a reasonable way to resolve the issue, until then could the industry execs kindly go do some actual work relating to the artists and connecting them to the fans.
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When even the pirates will tell you their piracy significantly reduces their purchasing, I’m not sure how much more evidence you need.
http://www.copyhype.com/2011/03/how-much-more-evidence/
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When even the pirates will tell you their piracy significantly reduces their purchasing, I’m not sure how much more evidence you need.
How much more evidence do we need that cars significantly reduce purchases of horse buggies?
The point is not that file sharing may lead to a reduction in purchases of music, but what it means for the overall impact on the market. And that’s the problem. All of the evidence shows MORE MONEY is being made by musicians today and MORE MUSIC is being produced today. It’s just that less is coming from direct sales of music.
We’ve discussed this before. Why you repeat false statements… I really don’t know.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
You analogy is off. Of course. Here let me help you:
How much more evidence do we need that shoplifting food significantly reduces purchases of food?
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
How much more evidence do we need that growing your own beets significantly reduces purchases of beets?
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Close but no cigar.
If you people were making your own music, then you’d be on target.
But of course you rip off other people’s instead. Because you need music and can’t make your own.
My analogy stands.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
No, your analogy tries to play the tired game of changing the act to one covered by a complete different (and criminal) law.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Still makes more sense than yours or Masnick’s by far.
Sorry.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
But why analogize at all?
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
What do you mean “you people”?
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Hey, why do the right thing and pay for something that you appropriate when you can operate in anonymity and misappropriate it without any fear of being caught?
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Hey, why do the right thing and pay for something that you appropriate when you can operate in anonymity and misappropriate it without any fear of being caught
Take a look at the Humble Indie Bundle. Then come back and admit that people pay all the time.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
I fear you have missed my point. Appropriate is associated with doing something consistent with what a rights holder has announced (pay for it, pay what you want, its free, etc.). Misappropriate is just the opposite.
If someone wants to go with PWYW, then that is just fine. That someone gave you choices among which you were free to select.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
You miss the point. People want to pay for access to music and will do so.
People don’t want to pay for what the music industry is providing.
The music industry can bang their head against the brick wall and demand consumers buy something they don’t want to pay for. Or they can offer them something they do want to pay for.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
I fear you have missed my point. Appropriate is associated with doing something consistent with what a rights holder has announced (pay for it, pay what you want, its free, etc.). Misappropriate is just the opposite.
No. I haven’t missed your point. You claimed — falsely — that people would not pay when they can get it anonymously for free. That’s false.
You’re only trying to draw a separate (and unrelated) distinction now after you’ve been called on this. You made a statement which is factually untrue, that people would not pay for something in such circumstances. Unfortunately, there is plenty of evidence that many would and do pay in such circumstances.
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
I have not met many people who misappropriate things and then later feel so guilty about what they have done that they part with something of value to make things right.
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
“I have not met many people who misappropriate things and then later feel so guilty about what they have done that they part with something of value to make things right.”
You should go out more. The fresh air can work wonders for clouded judgement.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Okay, we aren’t making the music but we can make our own copies. Cutting out the middle man whilst lowering the cost of printing and distributing on pointless media.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
This.
Re: Re: Re:4 Food replicators
And if we suddenly had replicators ala STNG, would you be in favor of outlawing unlicensed copies of apples which farmers grew?
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
“How much more evidence do we need that shoplifting food significantly reduces purchases of food?”
I like how you sneak in physical objects into a digital copyright infringement.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
How much more evidence do we need that shoplifting food significantly reduces purchases of food?
Actually, I would think you are a bit off base on this one. With the exception of kleptomaniacs and kids stealing for kicks, I would think most who shoplift food are doing so because they cannot afford it. So, since they couldn’t buy in the first place, it’s not reducing purchases at all.
Disclaimer: I do not advocate shoplifting in any form. Shoplifting is stealing and is obviously much more severe than, say, using a Star Trek replicator to make copies of the food and leaving the originals in the store.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Again you’ve missed the whole thought process part and went straight to the keyboard! Shoplifting involves theft of real property whereas copying/downloading something from the web doesn’t actually remove anything – it merely makes a digital copy on my own drive, with my own property (the drive).
Since you and those of your ilk keep repeating this mantra of yours, I’ll continue to post my usual reply…
Let’s take the legal definitions (courtesy of Law.com)of both because neither mentions the other so I will just add you to the group of those who really just talk out of their ass because that’s where their head rests. Theft involves TAKING something and infringement involves USING something, there is quite a bit of difference which I doubt you can see from in there.
theft
n. the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker’s use (including potential sale). In many states, if the value of the property taken is low (for example, less than $500) the crime is “petty theft,” but it is “grand theft” for larger amounts, designated misdemeanor or felony, respectively. Theft is synonymous with “larceny.” Although robbery (taking by force), burglary (taken by entering unlawfully) and embezzlement (stealing from an employer) are all commonly thought of as theft, they are distinguished by the means and methods used and are separately designated as those types of crimes in criminal charges and statutory punishments.
See also: burglary embezzlement larceny robbery
infringement
n. 1) a trespassing or illegal entering. 2) in the law of patents (protected inventions) and copyrights (protected writings or graphics), the improper use of a patent, writing, graphic or trademark without permission, without notice, and especially without contracting for payment of a royalty. Even though the infringement may be accidental (an inventor thinks he is the first to develop the widget although someone else has a patent), the party infringing is responsible to pay the original patent or copyright owner substantial damages, which can be the normal royalty or as much as the infringers’ accumulated gross profits.
See also: copyright patent plagiarism royalty trademark
Let’s try this one more time:
T-H-E-F-T INVOLVES TAKING A PHYSICAL OBJECT FROM ONE PLACE TO ANOTHER, OFTEN DEPRIVING THE ORIGINAL HOLDER OF ITS PRESENCE!
I-N-F-R-I-N-G-E-M-E-N-T INVOLVES U-S-I-N-G SOMETHING AND NO ONE IS ABSENT ANY PROPERTY WHATSOEVER!
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Your example of infringement is really intended to keep people from replicating someone elses work in their own without permission or lic.
Even the example given clearly states that…”Even though the infringement may be accidental (an inventor thinks he is the first to develop the widget although someone else has a patent), the party infringing is responsible to pay the original patent or copyright owner substantial damages, which can be the normal royalty or as much as the infringers’ accumulated gross profits.”
Now, technially, downloading content may be a form of copywright infringment, but that is not the point. What we are talking about here is not so much about someone intentionally copying someones code and using it in their own work or even kids accidentally downloading a song to remix.
What we are discussing is the intentional and willful download of someone’s work that is for sale through various mediums. The work is being downloaded in an effort to avoid rightfully paying for that content. Therefore, this is equivalent to theft just as if you shoplifted a CD to avoid rightfully paying for the content on the CD. It is not the piece of plastic that has value, it is the content on the CD that has value. That content is what is being stolen without compensation.
Look at it this way, do you think the kids would be upset if they shoplifted what they thought was a CD of their favorite band only to find that it was blank? Sure they would. Why? Because IT’S THE CONTENT THEY INTENDED TO STEAL, NOT THE PLASTIC CD. Just because the content is in a different form than a CD, it is still being stolen.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
“What we are discussing is the intentional and willful download of someone’s work that is for sale through various mediums. The work is being downloaded in an effort to avoid rightfully paying for that content. Therefore, this is equivalent to theft just as if you shoplifted a CD to avoid rightfully paying for the content on the CD. “
The law, and the supreme court in more than one case disagrees with you. It might make you feel better to believe this is the case, but it has been soundly rejected as being equivalent.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
No it’s not.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Explain to me why the law would consider there to be a mandate to pay for a copy of a song. What law mandates that if you acquire a copy of a work, that you are required to pay for it? Your argument would hold water if content was actually property, but it’s not. Who’s property is it? It’s EVERYBODY’S property. Yes that song some artist spent however much time working on it belongs to every single person on earth once it’s published. Why? It’s because that song was created by using all the ideas, knowledge, and instruction that came before it and touched that artist. Every artist that ever distributed a song has their contributions applied to that song you so vehemently hold sacrosanct. Every work is built upon what came before. So, when you accuse people who copy the song “stealing” or “theft” you damn well better apply that to the artist too, because he did the same damn thing.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
“Your example of infringement is really intended to keep people from replicating someone elses work in their own without permission or lic. “
Please explain why James Watt spent his entire life “protecting” the steam engine, and yet the technology advanced after he died
“What we are discussing is the intentional and willful download of someone’s work that is for sale through various mediums. The work is being downloaded in an effort to avoid rightfully paying for that content. Therefore, this is equivalent to theft just as if you shoplifted a CD to avoid rightfully paying for the content on the CD. It is not the piece of plastic that has value, it is the content on the CD that has value. That content is what is being stolen without compensation. “
Money is a rivalrous and scarce commodity. People only have so much of it, and they will part with it for what they value most. This is only natural. It’s NOT theft to take advantage of a filesharing network to download a file in any way, shape or form. Quite frankly, all the people looking at copyright for penalties look at the wrong thing.
Does the music industry have a rival? Yes
Does the movie industry have a rival? Yes
Does the game industry have a rival? Yes.
But that rival is not piracy
The music industry is now battling the artists for relevance. Their tactics of lowballing artists and having them sign away their copyrights is at an end.
The movie industry is facing the same problems of relevancy. The MPAA might not be needed to rate movies and the newer movies are being done for far cheaper than the MPAA would do for a summer blockbuster.
The games industry is facing competition from free social games on Facebook. Think about that… There’s other ways that people are spending their time. Why should you be concerned about piracy when people’s eyeballs are already on free games to play?
You should look to engage the people, not criminalize them. So far, the whole “copy is theft” mantra holds no water when the explanation is so full of holes.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
MORE MONEY is being made by musicians
You’ve yet to produce a population and inflation adjusted citation for this.
We’ve discussed this before. Should we just assume you’re making false statements?
MORE MUSIC is being produced today.
So what?
McDonald’s makes more burgers than ever before. The world’s population is larger than ever before.
Quality is what matters, not quantity.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
But quality in the arts is still somewhat subjective.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
But quality in the arts is still somewhat subjective.
Actually, it is completely subjective.
If this the AC I think it is, his opinion of the quality of art is the only one that matters in his tiny little world and he thinks it applies to the rest of us.
Personally I would rather have the market determine the “quality” of art, not some middleman.
Seriously, when was the last time you based your appreciation of a song based on the A&R man’s opinion?
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
I have to repeat once more, sounds too good:
And everything what doesn’t fit in the market shall perish! Fantastic new world! Long live the neo-liberal market fundamentalists!
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
And everything what doesn’t fit in the market shall perish!
What exactly would not fit into the market? Please explain.
If you make something and 10,000 appreciate it, you have made “quality art” for 10,000 people.
If you make something and 1 person appreciates it, you have made “quality art” for only one person.
If you make something and only you appreciate it, you have made “quality art” only for yourself and no one else thinks it’s “quality art” at all.
See how that works?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how long you can wait…) this copyright/theft confusion is probably self-correcting. As the current generation grows up and moves into political and business positions of power, the lack of business model flexibility will disappear, new or evolving attitudes toward the value of copyright will become more prevalent, and so on.
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People saying stuff isn’t evidence. You do understand that right?
The evidence of the last census suggests that the Jedi are the fastest growing religion in the world, but you know something, it isn’t.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
That’s because the Sith are…
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
The evidence of the last census suggests that the Jedi are the fastest growing religion in the world, but you know something, it isn’t.
Where’s your evidence that it isn’t? How do you know that there isn’t a growing number of people that fervently believe in the power of the Force? As a belief system it’s no more irrational than many others. (I could also point out the idea of the Force has some similarities to some pagan beliefs)
The thing about evidence is we need more evidence to refute it, not just your opinion that something is “obviously” not true.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Is it me, or that a link to an article debunking your statement?
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You keep linking that. IT does not mean what you think it means.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
You do understand that your trolling-shilling is having an effect that is the opposite of what you are trying to achieve. It is causing people to think things through. Which in turn causes them to come to similar conclusions as the rest of us freetards … 😉
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Quote:
He probably is lying through his teeth, since the original report from the RIAA cites 16 markets growing and only 3 are from countries with increased enforcement, all the others are from countries that have lax or no meaningful protections at all.
So that guy is not a source that people to pay attention too LoL
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Actually I wouldn’t be surprised if that quote was true, given that it refers to music sales. It depends on what you measure. Few people buy music in Brazil; the music industry as a whole (including things outside physical media sales), however, is booming.
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I’d argue that I’ve purchased more when I was illegally downloading things.
Illegally downloading Family Guy episodes is what got it enough of a fanbase to get it back on the air…twice. The show is 10 times more successfull now than it was in 2002 when people were scrambling to find the cancelled episodes online.
Your comment isn’t evidence. It’s rhetoric.
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By your ?logic?, any competition is theft. Starbucks reduces the purchasing of coffee from the caf? across the street. Theft!
No, it?s called competition, and it?s what has been the driving force of progress for the past 3.7 or so billion years. You know what it?s called when you artificially limit competition? Monopoly. And that?s what copyright is?an artificial, counter-productive, unnatural, immoral, monopoly on universals. It deprives me from using my own property in any way I like. Now, that?s theft!
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While I don’t agree with how the record companies are going about their goal, conceptually, these ilegally downloading/copying content is equivalent to theft.
The note aboves states that in shoplifting a CD, they are actually stealling property, while downloading, nobody is missing anything. While that may be a physically acurate description, if fails to take under consideration what is actually being stolen.
In the first case, it is not the physical media that holds the value, it is the content on the media that the person wants. The media is just the method of distribution. In the 2nd case, once again, it is the actual content that has the value and therefore, downloading it without compensating the parties that created and made available the content is stealing the value of that content, just as if you stole that same content in physical form.
Therefore, yes, downloading or copying content is a form of theft.
No matter how ones tries to justify their actions, it is hard to say that we don’t know right from wrong.
With that said, I do think that record companies, artists, etc. need to adapt their business models to this new generation of digital distribution. There are always going to be people that don’t want to pay for the content and will continue to steal it. However, there is no reason that record companies need to continue doing business as usual at the cost of the consumer and artists. The new digital distribution world is much more cost effective as well as market effective and can reach much larger audiences than ever before. These savings should be passed on to the consumer and the power of the internet leveraged for the good of consumer and artist alike.
However, this is still no reason or justification for stealing content in any form.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“While I don’t agree with how the record companies are going about their goal, conceptually, these ilegally downloading/copying content is equivalent to theft.”
No it’s not.
Re: Re:
Yeah, but it isn’t equivalent. It isn’t even understood. Which isn’t to say it doesn’t exist. I think focusing the educational campaigns on the truth would be more effective, that way the kid won’t run into something debunking your claim the next day and think everything you said is complete bunk.
Re: Re:
Educating them that the damage it does is equivalent is the goal.
You can’t educate people on what isn’t true. That’s the problem. They know it’s not true and any education campaign that is based around claiming it’s true will fail because of that.
Re: Re: Lies!
To be devil’s advocate:
Yeah, you CAN educate people in things that are blatantly false. For example, most North Koreans are raised to believe they live in the best, most technologically advanced, free-est country in the world. A great number of them never comes to the realization these beliefs are false–and those that DO realize the truth generally do not do so until their late 20’s at the earliest.
Additionally, most people on the planet are indoctrinated into one of several religions which mandates a belief in an invisible man who loves them, needs their money, and will send them to hell. And some of these people maintain this belief their entire lives!
Just sayin’
Re: Re: Re: Lies!
And some people–get this–don’t believe in God at all, despite significant evidence to the contrary.
And, they will maintain this belief until they are before him at which point it will be too late.
However, they will not maintain this belief for all eternity. They will eventually be educated.
Re: Re: Re:2 Lies!
A sentient puddle lay in a shallow depression, proclaiming “This place on the earth is perfectly suited for my form, there must be a greater puddle out there who created this shallow for me, in his wet wisdom” and never does the puddle realize that he is, in fact, shaped to the depression in the earth, rather than the other way around.
True story.
Re: Re: Re:3 Lies!
Wow, this is deep. Heh.
Re: Re: Re:2 Lies!
And some people–get this–don’t believe in God at all, despite significant evidence to the contrary.
Wait a minute here.
Please show me this “significant evidence” that your God exists.
I will then take your “evidence” and apply it to my “religion” and I will show you that my “God”, The Flying Spaghetti Monster exists.
Re: Re: Re:2 Lies!
despite significant evidence to the contrary.
What exactly is your definition of “evidence”?
Re: Re: Re:2 Lies!
Yeah, just last night, I asked my bowl of soup to make today go well, and then I found $5 on the ground outside my apartment. Clearly my bowl of soup is a deity.
Re: Re: Re:3 Lies!
Can I copy your god?
Re: Re: Re:4 Lies!
You may not. His Church of Scientology will sue you for copyright infringement.
Re: Re: Re:2 Lies!
And some people…juggle geese….
Re: Re: Re:2 Lies!
Last I heard there was this religion that was growing fast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
Pastafarianism are everywhere.
Re: Re: Re:3 Lies!
But the Flying Spaghetti Monster can’t be real since it says that declining number of pirates lead to higher temperates. Oh, Somali type of pirates.
Re: Re: Re:2 Lies!
This, surely, was sarcasm.
Re: Re: Re: Lies!
There are three ways to govern people: by cooperation (people obey laws because they respect the laws), by deception (people obey because they think the laws mean something different than they actual do), and by fear (establishing punishments so severe people will obey people and laws they hate). As studies like this show, there’s little hope for ruling by cooperation on things like this, so all around the world people are trying the other two with regard to copyright law.
As such, countries like China and North Korea are leading the way in government theory.
Re: Re: Re:2 Lies!
That brings to mind my favourite line from the Star Wars prequel movies: “So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause”
But that’s just a popcorn movie, Uncle George couldn’t possibly have been commenting on anything that’s happening in the real world. Could he?
These kids would feel differently if I asked them to make a digital copy of their wallets and then took that digital copy away from them, leaving them with their original wallets to make additional copies of, wait, I screwed this up. Let’s see if I can get this back on track.
These kids would feel differently if I copied their stuff in a digital format and then copied it some more, dammit!
These kids would feel differently if I stole them!!!
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First it was just copyright infringement… then they started stealing children
Re: Re:
How about, “These kids will feel different when they try to get jobs in the software, gaming, recording, animation, or writing industries and find themselves getting ripped off themselves.”
True story.
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It’s only true cause the recording studios, movie studios, publishers, and other gatekeepers in the “software, gaming, recording, animation, or writing industries” keep ripping off their employees. Start there if you want to find the people how need to be “educated” about piracy.
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I’ve worked in the software industry for 20+ yrs. I don’t feel ripped off when someone uses my code. I feel honored. Their use of it do not magically stop my copy of it from working. Nor does it stop me from being well paid.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
If people stop paying your employer for the s/w and instead just keep copying it and giving it to their friends, I am pretty sure you will stop getting paid.
If your employer doesn’t make money, you don’t make money, pretty simple math.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
And yet, it seems, it is happening and both he and his employer are still being paid.
Hmmm…
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Most people don’t realise this, but the number of software developers employed by companies that directly sell software is a relatively small fraction of the industry.
Software development is really about selling the service of problem solving with computers. A company has a task they want to complete regularly. They’d like it automated to reduce errors due to manual processing, and to free up staff for other more productive activities. They pay software developers (directly or indirectly) to solve their specific problem.
Or perhaps they want to sell a physical product that does something, so they pay the software developers to make the product do what they want.
That’s the real beauty of the open source approach. As we resolve different problems, the solutions can be published and shared, meaning that we can move on to solving new problems instead of endlessly reinventing solutions to problems that others have already dealt with effectively.
There are a ton of ways to make money in the software industry, and most of them don’t involve getting paid multiple times for writing a single piece of software. Instead, most of us get paid for writing new software, or selecting and tailoring existing software for a specific situation. Even in the companies that do sell shrink-wrapped software, the developers aren’t getting paid royalties. Instead, we’re paid (and usually well) for the time we spend making the company’s products better. It doesn’t matter whether that product goes on to sell 10 units or 10 million, we’ve already been paid our share.
In cases where people do sell the same thing multiple times, then the idea is to make it a better experience to do the right thing. Most smartphone developers understand this, offering their apps at reasonable prices, but selling to a lot of people. Those are cases where the developer pretty much is the company, though. There are plenty of examples of big companies not getting it, though, and it provides opportunities for competitors to come in and offer a superior experience at a lower price point.
From my point of view, royalty deals mostly seem like a scam to get out of paying people adequate salaries up front by holding out the lure of possible future earnings (and hoping that authors aren’t financially savvy enough to figure out what a raw deal they’re actually getting due to the time-value of money and the disproportionate division of risk).
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
If people stop paying your employer for the s/w and instead just keep copying it and giving it to their friends, I am pretty sure you will stop getting paid.
Probably. What’s your point?
Or were insinuating that I should support a position that I know to be morally bankrupt merely because it would benefit me financially to do so?
Sorry, no dice.
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Hate to break it to you, but these kids work in those jobs already. I know them personally.
Re: Re: Re:
Could I get a job making the next Minecraft? That seems like a truly lucrative field.
Re: Re: Re:
this kid did that and doesnt feel any different
Re: Re: Poser fantasies
> How about, “These kids will feel different when
> they try to get jobs in the software, gaming,
> recording, animation, or writing industries and
> find themselves getting ripped off themselves.”
…no not really.
True story.
The “artistic talent” usually aren’t possessive jerks. They also usually don’t see any more benefit from the work they contributed to selling 50K units or 5 million.
True story.
The people that take advantage of the artists are a different matter though.
Obscurity is far worse than piracy. It just takes an enlightened person to get over the puritan fixation on crime an punishment and being jealous of other people’s good fortune.
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I work in the software industry.
Abolish intellectual property laws.
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Second!
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How about, “These kids will feel different when they try to get jobs in the software, gaming, recording, animation, or writing industries and find themselves getting ripped off themselves.”
How about, we take these kids and educate them on business models that don’t rely on government imposed monopolies to earn a living from their work.
Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life. Teach a man about copyright and he will catch one fish and expect to be paid for 100 years and expect everyone else protect his fish for him.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Build a man a fire and he stays warm all night,
light a man on fire and he stays warm the rest of his life!!
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Probably won’t matter. From my experience in the industry, few professional engineers (software and hardware) care about piracy, and many do it themselves. I only know one professional engineer that personally believes that piracy is wrong and seriously harmful; all the others either don’t consider it wrong or don’t think it’s significantly harmful.
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Mmm. Five professional software engineers all testifying to exactly the same thing.
I just love watching an IP maximalist AC’s delusions that creators hate piracy as much as they do get shattered by reality.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
My question is “who is the rights holder?” If the engineer, then more power to him or her. If a third party, then that is another matter, and especially if that third party is their employer who may have different views.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Awesome. So you really couldn’t care less about creators, only about the business suits who hold the copyright to stuff they didn’t themselves create. Glad we got that cleared up.
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Pointing out idiocy aside, there’s one other thing I should add. I actually cut one line from my original post 3 or 4 levels up), as follows: “The ones who care most about IP are the business suits”.
I come back to this because my seizing the opportunity to further mock the AC actually sidestepped one of the two points I was originally intending to make: there’s a pretty good general correlation that the more knowledgeable a person is about technology (with the engineers that actually make the technology at the one extreme) the less concerned with piracy, and the ones least knowledgeable about technology (and digital piracy) are precisely those who most fear piracy. Coincidence?
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One s/w engineer rarely has the complete skill set to make his single creation reach the masses. It takes more that good code, application or idea to make an application successful. You still need the business, marketing, distribution, sales, etc. in order for one good app to have any level of success.
Steve Jobs would have been nothing without Steve Wozniak, but Steve Wozniak would also have been nothing without Steve Jobs. In otherwords, it takes the entire team to make a product successful. Rarely does one individual able to drive a product to success.
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That was a lot of words to simply confirm what I said. You should really work on learning to be more succinct.
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No, your argument is that s/w engineers seem to care less if their code is copied. That is a massive generalization to say the least.
However, assuming that were true, perhaps s/w engineers don’t care because they don’t have to worry about making their creation successful. There is the rest of the company that holds that responsibility. And it is the success of the product that allows everyone, including the s/w engineer to get paid.
Take away the rest of the company and force the s/w engineer to make the application successful so that he gets paid. Then let him watch as the income drops because everyone starts copying it and passing it around so there is no longer a need to buy it…my guess is that he will become deeply concerned about it.
As an independent s/w developer myself, I am certainly concerned about my products being shared and no compensation coming in. If I can’t get paid for my work, there is little point in my doing it. Fine if it is just a hobby, but when I have bills to pay, I can’t afford to give my s/w away.
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“However, assuming that were true, perhaps s/w engineers don’t care because they don’t have to worry about making their creation successful. There is the rest of the company that holds that responsibility. And it is the success of the product that allows everyone, including the s/w engineer to get paid.”
And perhaps they don’t care precisely because they know better than the (usually much older) business suits. Your entire argument hinges on the assumption that piracy is fundamentally harmful, and then uses that to justify one position over the other as more valid, ultimately concluding that piracy is bad. That’s called begging the question. If most of the people most knowledgeable about the subject disagree with that assumption, your argument is far more tenuous than mine.
“As an independent s/w developer myself, I am certainly concerned about my products being shared and no compensation coming in. If I can’t get paid for my work, there is little point in my doing it. Fine if it is just a hobby, but when I have bills to pay, I can’t afford to give my s/w away.”
Congratulations. If you weren’t an anonymous coward, I would officially count you as the second professional developer I know that seriously cares about piracy (the vast majority of those I “know” are people I know in real life).
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Small note: I am studying engineering. Neither me nor many of the people I work with care about copyright. It’s about solving the problem as efficiently as possible. That is something copyright can never do.
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Unless you want to be an engineer in the former Soviet Union, which you don’t, you might want to care about copyright/IP to keep some foreign company from stealing whatever you design in the future.
If nobody pays you to design things, because anyone can steal your work, you can’t eat and you can’t design things so the problems you want to solve to make more efficient will not be done.
More likely, you are just rationalizing your theft of music now.
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It’s so amusing how people say “Think of the creators!” Then when the creators show they don’t care it’s “You should care, stupid, thieving creators!”
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If I can’t get paid for my work, there is little point in my doing it. Fine if it is just a hobby, but when I have bills to pay, I can’t afford to give my s/w away.
Agreed, if you can’t figure out how to get paid for it. You shouldn’t be doing it.
Same reason I’m not a professional bikini inspector.
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You mean their “employers”, the ones who hopefully make sufficient money to keep them on their payroll?
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Yes, those employers – the ones who know least about the subject at hand.
What exactly was your point, again?
P.S. I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt that you didn’t actually mean that the “employers” are the ones who earn the money, and out of charity employ the people who actually do the work that earned said money.
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In the corporate world, big and small, the corporation or other legal entity is a juridicial “person” and is the “employer”.
When the entity succeeds and makes money, people stay on its payroll. When it does not, they do not.
Your “beef” seems to be directed more towards an entity’s management, and particularly when those who decide the direction an entity will take in the market are not intimately familiar with the creation of products or the provisioning of services being offered to its customer base.
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Ah yes, reading back it is clear that’s what you meant in the original post, and I interpreted it as “the business suits at the top”, since non-sentient entities cannot have beliefs, which is the entire thing we’re discussing.
“Your “beef” seems to be directed more towards an entity’s management, and particularly when those who decide the direction an entity will take in the market are not intimately familiar with the creation of products or the provisioning of services being offered to its customer base.”
That is correct. My “beef” is with the people who know least about the decisions they’re making and participate the least in actually making what the company profits from making the decisions that decide the fate of the entire company (and, in some cases, the entire world).
That said, the topic of discussion is the opinions of 1. society in general, and 2. creators (and, for good measure, 3. the people most knowledgeable about technology and digital piracy), not me in particular. Legal entities are primarily dictated by the business suits and shareholders, both of which are frequently further from actually creating anything than the company secretaries.
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Those kids will feel ripped off when they look at everybody else and nobody gets paid again and again and again over and over again, only artists.
Kids will get irritated that an entire class of people can dictate to them what they should or should not do with what they bought.
All kids eventually learn that you get paid first and then you work. Every kid learn early on that they can’t go into a store and get things without paying first, so when they start selling things they will get the money first and give the product latter not give something and hope people pay you.
Meaning at some point artists should learn to do what everybody else does, they set a price on their work and get paid and then they deliver something.
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“All kids eventually learn that you get paid first and then you work.”
I work my @$$ off for two weeks at a time and I have to wait until payday before I see a cent.
Where do i sign up for this program you speak of?
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you know. it’s just a hunch, but that might explain all this movement around “software as a service” that’s been coming on strong of late.
all these startup hackers and next-gen business folks.
you may have heard of a few of these poor, destitute companies getting ripped off… twitter, facebook, groupon, zynga, etc. all started by people who were probably still in college during the time of napster.
that’ll learn them!
m3mnoch.
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No, that’s a totally unrelated (and interesting) matter. Moving from sales to service/subscription is merely the next step in the evolution of the capitalistic economy toward ever higher profit margins. That was inevitable with or without piracy.
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oooh, oooh! or….
it could be that entertainment-based content creation — music, storytelling, plays, performances, etc. — have historically (aka previous to the 20th century) all been service-based.
perform, or you don’t get paid. is that really so different?
to all intents and purposes, the boxing and selling of ideas is a relatively new concept. the boxing and selling of the distribution methods, however, is totally different. conceptually, there’s no difference between pages in a book and bandwidth over the wire. they are vessels to deliver ideas.
you can sell access to the idea, not the idea itself, because there’s no inherent scarcity in ideas. only in the delivery method.
m3mnoch.
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“to all intents and purposes, the boxing and selling of ideas is a relatively new concept. the boxing and selling of the distribution methods, however, is totally different. conceptually, there’s no difference between pages in a book and bandwidth over the wire. they are vessels to deliver ideas.”
That’s true, too. For thousands of years, sale (or barter) of goods has been just that because physical items were more or less consumable, and if not they had a limited lifespan. The digital world (and to a limited extent the printed world before it) has brought about both the possibility of selling ideas, which aren’t consumable and do not decay with use. Business suits are coming to realize this difference, and as a result are realizing that they can make more money by renting rather than selling digital goods, leading to the transition to a service model rather than retail.
My prediction is that a service model of software and other digital goods will predominate in the future, barring other concerns that would make it impractical or unprofitable.
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Software as a service (sometimes called Cloud computing) will succeed if it offers a value proposition over that of having software on your own PC.
In other words, if the market buys into the idea that having your documents available and editable from any device and location is a significant benefit that exceeds the limitations of needing an always accessible broadband connection and possibly an additional monthly subscription to the service, not to mention the privacy concerns – then it stands a chance.
Failing that there will always be companies willing to sell (or give) you software to run locally, even if the big names suddenly decide not to offer their wares this way.
The same thing applies to music, video etc.
And yet another study showing that "new" thinkers get knowledge from kids
A kid rationalizing his theft, like many of us did as teenagers, is certainly knowledgeable.
Re: And yet another study showing that "new" thinkers get knowledge from kids
It’s certainly more knowledgeable than calling infringement theft.
Oh, wait, you mean a false “knowledgeable” with a false “theft”, causing the opposite due to double negatives? Now I see what you did there, talking about those smart kids. Nudge nudge wink win.
Re: Re: And yet another study showing that "new" thinkers get knowledge from kids
Nudge nudge wink win.
This has the potential to become an internet meme. Let’s make it happen.
Nudge nudge wink win. 😛
Re: And yet another study showing that "new" thinkers get knowledge from kids
The children are our future.
Plan accordingly.
Theft? Back to the Basics!
http://rationalargumentator.com/art_bateman/Bateman_Piracy_Not_Theft.png
Now, you may argue all you want that your product being downloaded, will cause you “loss of income”
It is exactly the same argument that i have stating that my 8 hour work day should be valued at $500.00 an hour, and not at the current rate.
Should i sue for loss of “Potential Income”??
Isn’t the burden of Proof on the Prosecution demonstrating this loss, and not just dealing with “potentials”???
Why are we still having this conversation??
Ah yes, because the Recording Industry pays lobbyists and politicians to keep drafting non-enforceable laws, so they can sustain their monopolistic business model.
Whatever happened to “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”?
File sharing is not inherently theft, but 99% of what people use file sharing for IS theft. It’s easy to ignore the fact you are really stealing someones work and labor, when you don’t have to look at the victim. Just because you don’t see or understand the harm, doesn’t mean it’s not harming someone. Of course mike you don’t care who you hurt as long as you get all your stuff for free pirating, while sitting on your high-horse claiming you aren’t doing anything wrong. But you are wrong.
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Thank you for saving us the time of actually having to pay attention to you.
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Of course mike you don’t care who you hurt as long as you get all your stuff for free pirating
Evidence that Mike pirates anything? Thought not.
Just another shill. Report and move along, folks.
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Please come look me in the eye while I make a copy of something of yours and then (this is the worst part), I DESTROY the very same copy, right before your eyes! SUFFER!!!! For somehow, somewhere in that process you seem to think you lost something.
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File sharing is not inherently theft, but 99% of what people use file sharing for IS theft. It’s easy to ignore the fact you are really stealing someones work and labor
Curious. How does one steal labor?
Please explain.
Just because you don’t see or understand the harm, doesn’t mean it’s not harming someone.
I’m just looking for any evidence that there is harm. Instead, we find that for content creators who embrace file sharing and combine it with smart business models, they tend to be better off than they were previously. So I don’t see the harm as being from file sharing, but from failure to have a good business model.
Of course mike you don’t care who you hurt as long as you get all your stuff for free pirating, while sitting on your high-horse claiming you aren’t doing anything wrong. But you are wrong
Why do people always make this false claim. I do not “pirate” anything. All of the music I have I have paid for legally or obtained from free downloads *directly* from the musicians. I have not used any file sharing software to obtain unauthorized works.
So why would you lie and claim I do?
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Mike, you idiot, you should know by now its all they have to hold onto…kinda like their “special” blankie.
“Kids! You’re better off if you listen to less music!!”
– new major label marketing slogan
Kids are smart and they understand the difference. But politicians have learned that being stupid usually pays better.
erm...
I spend thousands a year on gaming and my gaming rig, i also download rip’s before i shell out 60 bucks for a game to make sure it’s what i want… I don’t think it’s the fact that people rip/pirate/whatever stuff that makes the AA’s/game companies resort to dumbassery, it’s the fact that people can figure out if the media/game is junk before they buy it…. no more blind buying… and for those that try and say.. but … but you can always try the demo… the demo is like a movie preview, they usually take the best parts and mesh them together, what you don’t know is the other 90% is crap….
Re: erm...
Agreed! When companies let me return crappy opened software, movies and music, THEN I’ll stop trying-before-I-buy.
I pay for rdio because friends told me about it. I get to listen to all the music I want and can easily be told about new music from friends or people I don’t even know.
I purchased concert tickets for three events to bands I had never listened to before having rdio. Rdio isn’t perfect but blows direct music purchases out of the water. I’m pretty sure the bands I purchased concert tickets from are getting a lot more money from me than they did before a streaming service became available. I don’t think I would’ve discovered them in the old model.
The same could be said for people who infringe and torrent mp3’s.. hear the music become a fan and find another way to spend their money on what they enjoy.
Find ways to make music/bands more accessible and I bet they magically have more fans. That may be willing to part with some cash for something they value.
these kids would feel differently if i found their ‘private’ pictures. made digital copies then posted them all over campus? after all they have their original copies.
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#fail
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You know, when you take out all logic, relevance, and context, that actually makes sense…
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I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that people that don’t understand the difference between “theft” and “infringement” also have trouble with the difference between both of those and “invasion of privacy” 😛
2 + 2 = five. Now all we need is an educational campaign to convince students of this.
Cool so when these kids start producing music, movies and software I can take copies of their work too without paying for it.