Pirate Bay guilty verdict came down today
Offline Personally I don't believe in the concept of intellectual property but I'll spare you all a lengthy screed on that topic. Suing those guys for 30 million kroner and putting them in jail for a year won't do anything to shut their website down let alone to stop file sharing, any more than attempting to denigrate people by referring to them as "pirates" has. They've already announced that they're starting a new service called IPREDator which in their words will "makes people online more anonymous". Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned in this somewhere, what could it possibly be?
Information doesn't want to be "free".
Google doesn't link to all the torrents that Pirate Bay links to.
The government loves you.
Why oh why didn't I take the bleu pill?
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
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Well, I do have agree on the matter of 'Intellectual Property' laws. They're just bogus, and cause far too many problems.
That said, the idea that all creative content should just be handed-out for free is repulsive to me. It's a load of bullshit. If I work my ass off developing a book or a film or a song or a game, why the fuck shouldn't I be able to sell it to you? Why are you entitled to just rip me off?
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
It's difficult for me to answer that question because I don't agree with the premise that the concept of intellectual property is necessary for people to make money from creative work. I agree that hard work and creativity has value, I just think it's unrealistic to believe that value is always monetary value.
In order for something to have monetary value there has to be the additional quality of scarcity. Anything that can be placed in a digital format, copied endlessly and sent from one end of the earth to the other in seconds has lost that quality. The only thing one can do is come in like a cop later and say "hey, I wanted you to pay me for that. Everyone must be monitered from now on to make sure nobody is stealing from me." It isn't worth it. That alone makes the idea trash from my perspective.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
Slight misunderstanding of copyright laws. The copyright holder is the publisher (distributor), not the individual creative person.
That said, I see no reason for those people to not get paid, but in a fully-digital environment, it's no longer reasonable to expect the payoff from content to be the same as in the 70s and 80s. Copying things is so easy that new laws must eventually be adopted that are closer to reality.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Internet is dying.
I WILL PIRATE FOREVER. I won't let anyone meddle with my life.
Where do I sign for piratebay army?
Well, unless you're an indie, like me.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
To throw in my $0.03: I'm dissapointed in this ruling because the idea of being a "facilitator" of copyright infringement is dangerously broad. Torrent files can be located through any search engine, trackers can disseminate block information for any file (copyrighted or not), the way the internet works essentially requires all information to be duplicated repeatedly... In the end this ruling just gives folks like the MPAA and RIAA the ability to chase down anyone they like.
As someone who uses BitTorrent technology all the time, without infringing on copyright, I find this ruling just a little scary.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
No, but it does mean that I'm the distributor as well as the individual creator, unless I'm missing something?
Actually, copyright law is something I'm hazy on. My layman's understanding of it:
If I (say) create an original painting in Photoshop or write an original story, I have a sort of 'automatic copyright' to it, right? And then I (if I wish) sell my copyright to a publisher (typically in exchange for a lump sum of $$$ as well as some kind of royalty rights), which entitles them to copy & distribute the work that they bought the copyright for?
Feel free to hit me with a trout and correct me if I've got that ass-backwards.
I can certainly understand that... but, I mean, let's be real:
Is there anyone who feels that the Pirate Bay was an unfair target here? It's no secret that they a central distribution channel for torrents to, well, pirated material (all of the invasive copy protection software that everyone - including myself - hates? The Pirate bay is a huge contributor to making it marketable to publishers). They also like to pull various antics when requested to take down the torrents by publishers - which likely rather made mincemeat of their case once they were actually sat down in front of a judge.
The MPAA and RIAA are not out to 'protect' myself or any other creative content provider; I'm well aware of this. They simply want $$$ and market control. The flip side is that I want to be able to sell my work to a publisher or (more likely) publish and sell it directly myself at some point, and courts refusing to rule against a nexus like the Pirate Bay for hosting and refusing to take down the torrent trackers essentially gives them legal free reign to run all over electronic publishers. In my case, I'm dealing with PDF books, and pirate torrent hosting nexi like The Pirate Bay, MiniNova, etc really are causing a lot of pain to that particular market (which is upsetting for me because it's a market that really has huge potential still).
Yes, I do agree with this as well (though, honestly, I can't fathom what new laws would mitigate things for the new environment). And of course, it's hardly realistic to expect a full stop on piracy.
However, I also think that ruling against the Pirate Bay in particular was fairly important. They've almost become a household name (to the point now where everyone who has the internet simply knows; if you want to get something for nothing, just hit-up the Pirate Bay).
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
yarr... *sniffle* tis a sad day fer da boyz...
i still be routing fer dem!
I'm one of the people who feels that the pirate bay was unfairly targeted. Pirate bay doesn't host any content, even .torrent files. It's just an advanced search engine specifically for bittorrent. They were found guilty of abetting illegal downloading which every search engine (especially Google) is guilty of.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
What they harm is a business model. It is arguably a better strategy to find a better business model to fit the new environment than to try and legislatively or judicially bludgeon the environment back into "how it used to be". Cassette tapes were going to kill the music market, remember? Then they adapted, and all was well. Then CD burners were going to kill the music market, then they adapted, now all is well. Etc. etc. etc.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
I agree that if you create something it is yours, even if they are just words. AT the same time, just like the letters of Jefferson, those words eventually become more valuable than one person ownership.
I don't think we should sacrafice personal ownership by allowing big media centralized ownership of everything.
There should always be a place just like cable access tv and public access radio for people who do not have big funds or own a major network, to get their thoughts and ideas out.
Ownership should be protected, but monopolies of power in media are exactly what the First Amendment forbids. The First Amendment is an anti-trust law that forbids monopolies of power of media or politics or party, or religion. It is not there to protect the big guy, it is there to protect everyone, including the small guy. "Fair Use" anyone?
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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OK Kevin, I hit you with a fish. However, it is only a goldfish. You sort of have that right but miss on the details. No big deal there.
I have had this conversation online so many times that I decided to take the time to actually read the law that relates to the matter and many of the relevant court rulings, so that I could be the guy who knows what he is talking about.
To some extent, that counts as an appeal to authority. However, I have read as much material as could fill a phone book, so I do have a bit more of a clue than people who have an opinion on what amounts to the theology of what “people should be allowed to do” vs what “companies would like as an excuse to suck our wallets dry”.
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Copyright begins when a work exists outside of the brain that makes an idea happen. As an extreme example, there have been court rulings that state that having an existence in computer memory counts. So this post that exists only in my word processor is already protected even though I have not finished writing it.
Let me use music as an example. Let's say that I write a song. Just for grins, the title of the song is Those who discuss copyright online are engaging in a kind of pop-theology.
Once I write the notes and lyrics on paper, it is a protected work. That protection extends all the way to the eventual *.mp3 file.
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With that much as a background, it is trivial to violate copyright law. Every cover band that exists is automatically criminal. Only the original artist (or those authorized by the publisher) can perform a work in public.
So if I get together with my buddies and play a protected work in my basement, that is not a problem. However, if I put my version of the song on youtube, then I have done something far worse than anything that TPB has done.
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That's why I like to call them the MAFIAA (2 a's intentional)
Your god's silence speaks loud and clear
*Blinks*
That's insane.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940