Yeah… we totally need a war on copyright infringers… now that Marijuana is heading towards decriminalization.
If Cory’s (excellent) novels cost him £5 million each to write then he might be less enthusiastic about giving them away for free.
I agree that “watching it the wrong way” is a little misleading, but by the examples used - watching a TV programme on IPlayer or music on Spotify - I don’t pay for those either. So in a sense it’s right. Choosing not to watch through the approved free channel is somehow a such a affront that it must be punished with jail.
1 Like
When you get it from the approved free channels, it’s free because someone paid for it for you already in place of you paying for it directly through licensing deals and advertiser support and the like, so the owners/creators of the content are still getting paid a price they’ve agreed is okay with them for their work. When you play a song on Spotify (even if you use the free version), the artist (or whomever owns their rights, I’m used to dealing with that directly only from the way it is as an unsigned musician) gets a wee tiny bit of money off it. Spotify gets money from their advertisers and pays money to the musicians or labels who own the works for every play. While it’s free to stream all you want as far as you’re concerned, it’s not like truly free. When you pirate that same song, the artist/rights holder doesn’t see even a fraction of a penny.
2 Likes
In theory, piracy isn’t actually taking anything away from the rights holder, while drunk driving is dangerous, shoplifting takes a physical item and rape is a lot worse than just theft. The argument here seems to be that the person pirating the show wouldn’t have paid to watch it anyway, so the rights holder isn’t actually losing revenue. I’d say a better analogy would be riding public transport without paying. In many places, the lines aren’t run at absolute capacity and they could take a few more passengers without needing more spaces or affecting the availability of seating. Still, if people see that it’s possible to ride without paying, they’re more likely to do it. You can quibble over the price or say that nobody would even notice you were there, but the company has a perfect right to fine you for ‘riding the bus the wrong way’. This is why there are often both physical barriers (turnstiles or entry only past the the driver) and legal barriers (random checks with fines if you are caught without a ticket). On the other hand, the fines should have some relation to the offense (a low multiple of your ticket price, perhaps), rather than being jailed for hijacking a bus.
1 Like
No. Because drunk driving puts lives at risk.
No, because shoplifting deprives the seller of the right to sell the stolen item.
No, because rape is direct physical and emotional harm to another person.
Your analogies are clueless as best, insulting, demeaning and outrageous at worst.
Making a copy of a digital item that can exist in a practically infinite number of copies almost effortlessly does not deprive the owner of the right to sell any number of copies. If you want to argue that some monetary recompense should be made by the downloader, provide a reasonable number. For example, if I were to download a show from a cable channel the one pays $8 per month to subscribe to, how much would four episodes (per month) of one show actually be worth? A few pennies? A dollar? By all means charge away. But first you have to prove that there was no legal way for me to have obtained that copy. E.g., what if I had an HBO subscription at a time when the show aired and I could’ve made a copy of the show on my DVR to watch anytime? That’s not illegal, so why it is illegal to use bitorrent to do the same thing later on? Describing this as watching tv programs “the wrong way” is apt. And the idea that one should go to jail or lose one’s internet access (worse even than losing phone service or access to transportation for many) is harshly punitive and in no way matches the severity of the very arguable “crime”.
4 Likes
This is key, and the punitive nature of the damages that have been awarded in “piracy” cases (that word alone is hugely prejudicial – equating piracy with making a copy of a file is an utterly false analogy) is a hysterical reaction to an easily calculable small fine.
1 Like
I like to think the David-Attenborough-narrated nature documentaries makes it worth the price.
2 Likes
But its not a different matter, its the subject of the OP. Yes, its “the wrong way” but what is the punishment for watching TV the wrong way? Imprisonment? Really? Losing internet access? Really? How about a small fine? Wow! What an idea!
1 Like
If I had a device that I could point at a physical object, push a button, and have a duplicate of that object pop out of the device, copyright people would be worried about revenue streams and lobby for laws to make duplicating objects a crime. Which is the stupidest fucking thing to be worried about because I’m holding a device that can feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, and fix most of the things that we fight over.
4 Likes
Taking imaginary revenue…? If you produce a move and release it only in some countries, people in other countries are not taking anything away from you – there is no revenue being taken away, there is revenue you refused to get.
Damn, them pirates are taking away my God-given right to lucre! Except it wasn’t God-given, IP is a recently invented concept. It was supposed to help subsidize the arts, and it’s now actively doing the opposite (see recent charts about having more in-print titles written before 1920 than after, despite the volume of works produced after 1940 being orders of magnitude larger).
And what a civilization, I might add. With guns to protect property (be it physical or intellectual), atomic bombs to protect those who protect property, and an ever-expanding set of laws to make sure 85 people get more protected property than half the planet.
3 Likes
To be fair, they loose revenue because they could have sold distribution rights to a third party or delayed the release to those countries.
In the first case, the value of the product is reduced since it is widely available outside mainstream channels. In the latter case, revenue is reduced by having (ostesibly) fewer people purchasing the product.
As for the rest of your post, I’m right there with you.
They are not just the ‘nasty’ party. They are massively ignorant, reactionary, dangerously careless about human rights, pro-dogma, anti-evidence and in every way unfit to run a country.
In that respect they are more or less equivalent to the Labour and Liberal democrat parties, but they maintain a stable of carefully-untrained super-arseholes like Michael Gove and Theresa May, against whom it is very hard for the other parties to compete. Only UKIP even try.
It may be this PM’s “special” advisor is vying to join those exalted ranks.
That might be logical, but logic does not necessarily guide the dividing line between civil and criminal. The same argument would hold for theft and both civil and criminal penalties apply to theft.
That’s… debatable at best. See Iron Maiden in Eastern Europe, etc etc etc. Trade, especially in creative endeavours, is nothing without advertising. In unexplored markets, unofficial channels are the most efficient advertising there is.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
