ATTN JMS: File Sharing, Sci-Fi TV and the art of motorcycle maintenance
SamusekTDS
CHEAP PLUG FOR OTHER BOARD:
http://community.spacecast.com//ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=009123
-- where we were discussing (for almost two weeks now) downloading/file
sharing of tv shows (particularly SF) and the recent open letter from
the producers of Battlestar Galactica asking people not to download or
it will result in cancellation for the show.
There were a couple of Canadian Sci-Fi tv industry people involved in
the discussion, and they were split rather widely on this issue. But the
subject was intensely divisive and brought our happy little community
crashing to earth, even resulting in (so far) one member being banned.
All this to wonder what your full thoughts are on the subject,
specifically regarding the Battlestar Galactica letter...
http://mboard.scifi.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=284022&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#284022
....and the issues we raised in *our* debate - summarised thusly:
- whether downloading kills ratings/shows
- whether downloading helps to promote (or otherwise help) the show
- effectiveness/disenfranchisement of current ratings methodology
- downloading vs. VCR use
- whether downloading kills DVD sales
- whether downloading is illegal or not
- whether downloading is immoral or not
- and finally, the very concept of illegality vs. immorality
As I said - the debate was pretty far-reaching and heated!
---
Sam.
Jeffrey Gustafson
I have not read your board's posts/arguments, however, I have gotten into
debates in RL on just this subject, in general terms...
>- whether downloading helps to promote (or otherwise help) the show
I do not believe it does. It is my experience that people that go through
the trouble of finding and downloading episodes of a show or a movie are
already fans of said show or movie thus making promotional possibilities
utterly moot, not to mention the actual harm done to a show/movie (see
below). If someone sends a copy (be it DVD/VHS/mpeg) of show/movie to
someone else to get them interested in that product, at which point the
newly interested party proceeds to watch or buy the show/movie, then it
certainly applies as a promotional tool, but such follow-through seems to me
to be rare.
>- downloading vs. VCR use
The difference between the two is clear - with a VCR you have to watch (or
at least have your VCR watch) a program in order to get the copy, while with
downloading, you do not have to be anywhere near the broadcast to obtain a
copy, thus skewing the potential rating (whether you happen to be a "Nielson
Family" or not). Additionally, in terms of using downloading as an archival
device, it would be perfectly moral, IMHO, (though not technically legal) to
do so had you seen or bought the content in question, just as it would be
(morally and legally, thanks to the Betamax decision) if you used a VHS;
however, if you had not seen or bough the product, it is no different then
procuring a bootleg copy - which is exactly what you are doing be it VHS or
download, and in both cases being patently illegal and in my view immoral.
>- whether downloading kills DVD sales
At this point, not yet. However, one need only look at the impact that
downloading has had on the record industry to see the potential exists.
>- whether downloading is illegal or not
Clearly, yes. Any dessemination or distribution of a copyrighted material
without the knowledge or consent of the rights holder, whether or not it is
for profit, and no matter the form, is obviously a violation af federal and
international copyright laws.
"But," some may wager, "what about Fair Use." Well, my understanding of
Fair Use is that it is only intended for parts of a whole - snippets of a
film, or a single song or parts of songs from a CD - or making personal
copies for archive purposes. But many downloaders take the whole shebang.
>- whether downloading is immoral or not
Yes. Look at it this way: You walk into a record store or book store or
Wal-Mart (or whatever), grab the Spider-Man 2 DVD, and walk out the front
door without paying. Clearly illegal, of course, and I'd reckon most folks
would say immoral as well. Now say you download the DVD off of Kazaa. The
only difference between the Wal-Mart DVD you've stolen and the Download of
the DVD you've stolen, (aside from quality, natch) is that the Wal-Mart
version is on a plastic disc wrapped in a pretty box. The 1's and 0's are
the same - in both instances the goal is the content lying within. In both
instances you have taken that content without paying. And thus both
instances are immoral.
However, the term downloading is a bit vague to draw total moral absolutes
without drawing some distinctions. If a movie or teevee show has never been
released on DVD or VHS and, as far as one could tell, there is no reasonable
expectation that this would ever be the case, then it is not immoral to
download a copy. If you live in a part of the world where obtaining a book
or film or piece of music is illegal because of political reasons (banned by
the government for content otherwise deemed perfectly acceptable throughout
the rest of the world), then it is not Immoral. And as noted above, if you
have already bought the content, then it is not Immoral, and arguably,
(though, of course, not technically when talking of downloading) legal.
Additionally, if you were staying within the limits of the law by sticking
within the limits of the Fair Use provision, I do not believe it is Immoral
at all.
>- and finally, the very concept of illegality vs. immorality
That one would have to be handled on a case by case basis. Downloading that
which you otherwise do not own: Illegal and Immoral. Some folks would
probably disaggree with me about the Immorality of that. Smoking weed:
Illegal, but Not Immoral. Many folks probably disaggree with me there.
Rolling through a Stop sign where to do so does not put yourself or others
lives or property in danger: Technically Illegal in many states, but Not
Immoral. And I'd reckon everybody aggrees with me on that one.
With something like morality, mileage will differ form place to place,
person to person, thus it can never be reasonably expected to always jive
with the rule of Law.
>As I said - the debate was pretty far-reaching and heated!
Heated debate only occurs in the absense of cooler heads...
-The Jeff
Sheridan:"So how did you find out all of this?"
Bester:"I'm a telepath. Work it out." <*>
Mark Alexander Bertenshaw
> [Posted and mailed]
> (aside from quality, natch)
A totally side point: but what does "<comma> natch" actually mean? I keep
on thinking 'nachos'. So is it something to do with melted cheese and
salsa? Naturally, because I don't know what it means, and particularly
because I'm in a bad mood due to a cold, this is exceptionally irritating to
me.
--
Mark Bertenshaw
Kingston upon Thames
UK
Alpe97
Alexander Bertenshaw" <news...@mbertenshaw.plus.com> writes:
>"<comma> natch" actually mean? ....... Naturally
You got it! Naturally.
Andy
Paul Harper
<sam...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Sam,
I haven't been onto your board (and won't if that's okay!) but from a
UK viewer's perspective, I'll have a go at the questions you raised.
It's easy to forget that the Internet is global, and that local US
issues are not the only ones:
>....and the issues we raised in *our* debate - summarised thusly:
>
>- whether downloading kills ratings/shows
Show ratings are measured in millions. Until hundreds of thousands or
more copies of individual episodes are downloaded, it's going to make
absolutely no difference at all. At worst, on the bittorrent sites I
see a few thousand (3 or 4 is the most I have ever seen) people
downloading a show. This is statistically insignificant in terms of
ratings. Even 10,000 is statistically insignificant, and I've never
seen anything like that number.
Also, other than being a very small number, a large proportion of
those people will be people who wouldn't get measured anyway - how a
UK viewer downloading a US show that's not even transmitted over here
(I am a great fan of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and would not
get a chance to watch it over here at all) can affect US ratings is
beyond me! Same goes for Germany, Holland and Sweden which have very
active download cultures.
So, in short, a definite "no" to this question.
>- whether downloading helps to promote (or otherwise help) the show
Probably not in its home market, no. But in other markets, certainly.
The likes of the show "Lost" will probably be more popular over here
because of the word of mouth generated from downloaded copies. This is
a good thing! Even if we don't get to see the show transmitted here -
and we frequently don't - now the US DVD market has realised that
there is significant money to be made from DVD sales of shows, people
over here will import US DVDs to get their favourite downloaded shows
at high quality.
So, in short, a probably "yes" to this question.
>- effectiveness/disenfranchisement of current ratings methodology
The current ratings methods have been outdated for a good half-century
now<grin!>. Over here, the weekly music charts have just started to
take (official) downloads - like iTunes and the like - into account
when calculating sales. Why not do something similar for TV? It's not
technically difficult to monitor the number of times a program has
been downloaded. Just add those numbers in.
What the program-makers are probably objecting to is that the adverts
are being cut out of the download files. But since this is no
different to recording a programme on your VCR and fast-forwarding
(either manually, or these days automatically) through them, they
don't have that much of a leg to stand on.
>- downloading vs. VCR use
Ah. Sort of answered that above. No real difference, since a VCR can
be set using the timer to record a programme, and can be manually or
automatically used to skip advert breaks.
Whether you set a timer to record a programme or set off a download
then in both cases ignore adverts, it makes no difference at all.
>- whether downloading kills DVD sales
No sign of that yet at all. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest
exactly the opposite. When a programme or movie is downloaded, if it's
rubbish it gets thrown away. If it's good, when the DVD comes out, it
gets bought because of the quality improvement and the extras on the
disc.
>- whether downloading is illegal or not
Probably. But I don't care. I have no moral problem with it - it's up
to the suppliers of the material to adapt themselves to the changing
environment. The music industry has done this to the extent that over
here around 15% of *all* music sales are now done online via legal
downloads. We have seen a large increase in independent labels and
go-it-alone bands putting their stuff directly onto the download
sites. This cuts out the heavyweight distributors and retail outlets
(which always too *far* too large a cut of the take anyway) and
encourages more bands to do more. This is, again, a good thing.
If the "moving picture" people can't make some sort of business case
for providing a similar legal service then they are even more stupid
than I thought they were (which is considerable, but let's not go
there!!).
To use an example I used above, I'd be happy to pay (say) $2.99 to
download The Daily Show whenever I want it. Just as I am happy to (and
all too frequently do!) pay my 79p or GBP7.99 for a track or album
from iTunes.
If they *don't* move in that direction, and fairly quickly, then
whatever happens will be largely down to them. They can do the
Ostrich-Head-in-Sand for only so long.
Besides, it's a *genuine* business opportunity. I'm sure someone,
somewhere over there is seriously looking at it. I sure hope so!
>- whether downloading is immoral or not
My view, as stated above, is that it isn't. Morality is about not
harming people, not invading countries (again, let's not go there!),
not polluting the planet and heavy stuff like that.
To label downloading a programme or movie as "immoral" is diluting the
word beyond all recognition.
>- and finally, the very concept of illegality vs. immorality
Ah. Interesting one! A lot of "laws" that have been passed have been
purely protectionist and actually nothing to do with any moral issue
at all. They usually get grand-sounding names like "Free Trade" and
the like, but are, when the fat is boiled off, little more than
protectionism.
In those cases, I would argue that since the laws are restricting free
trade, they are themselves immoral.
I tend to take a *lot* more notice of things that are [in my view]
immoral than I do things that are merely illegal.
And don't forget - things that are illegal in the US are not
necessarily illegal here in the UK or in Germany or Sweden or anywhere
else for that matter.
Also, some countries have rather more personal freedom than others, so
morality differs too - it's one reason despite offers otherwise, that
I'll be staying in Europe, though hopefully somewhere a little warmer
than here!! <g>
>As I said - the debate was pretty far-reaching and heated!
I don't doubt it!. Apologies for this rather over-long reply - I hope
a non-US perspective helps, and if it doesn't the "delete" key is your
friend <grin>
Regards,
Paul.
--
. A .sig is all well and good, but it's no substitute for a personality
. JMS: "SFX is a fairly useless publication on just about every imaginable front.
Never have so many jumped-up fanboys done so little, with so much, for so long."
. EMail: Unless invited to, don't. Your message is likely to be automatically deleted.
Mark Alexander Bertenshaw
<Slaps forehead> Of course!
Thanks, Andy.
Paul Harper
<news...@mbertenshaw.plus.com> wrote:
>Jeffrey Gustafson wrote:
>> [Posted and mailed]
>
>> (aside from quality, natch)
>
>A totally side point: but what does "<comma> natch" actually mean?
"Aside from quality, naturally".
Hope the cold gets better soon, Mark!
Andrew Swallow
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"Paul Harper" <pa...@harper.net> wrote in message
news:ufe6r0tod54eb9tsg...@4ax.com...
[snip]
> The current ratings methods have been outdated for a good half-century
> now<grin!>. Over here, the weekly music charts have just started to
> take (official) downloads - like iTunes and the like - into account
> when calculating sales. Why not do something similar for TV? It's not
> technically difficult to monitor the number of times a program has
> been downloaded. Just add those numbers in.
>
> What the program-makers are probably objecting to is that the adverts
> are being cut out of the download files. But since this is no
> different to recording a programme on your VCR and fast-forwarding
> (either manually, or these days automatically) through them, they
> don't have that much of a leg to stand on.
The computer companies are making millions of dollars from
the paid downloading of music. Every cent of that is due
to the laziness and incompetence of the board members
of the music companies. EVERY CENT.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3960751.stm
I wonder if the board members of the film and tv studios
are equally lazy?
The actual work may be done by people of a lower rank
but only the board members of a company can authorise
the creation of a new division and give it an a budget.
In practice it is the CEO himself who has been skiving
off.
Andrew Swallow
Jms at B5
>sharing of tv shows (particularly SF) and the recent open letter from
>the producers of Battlestar Galactica asking people not to download or
>it will result in cancellation for the show.
>....and the issues we raised in *our* debate - summarised thusly:
>
>- whether downloading kills ratings/shows
>- whether downloading helps to promote (or otherwise help) the show
>- effectiveness/disenfranchisement of current ratings methodology
>- downloading vs. VCR use
>- whether downloading kills DVD sales
>- whether downloading is illegal or not
>- whether downloading is immoral or not
>- and finally, the very concept of illegality vs. immorality
>All this to wonder what your full thoughts are on the subject,
You mean, aside from the fact that it's massively illegal? I mean, to a
certain extent, the task here is to show that it's immoral to steal a car
because one might scrape the paint or affect the business of local repair shops
after it's been cargo-shipped to some distant city.
But okay, I'll bite.
I don't want to get too far into the "it's as if" part of this conversation,
because in no time at all the conversation becomes about the metaphor instead
of the thing itself...but to indulge that for just a moment....
Let's say you're a big fan of Jonathan Carroll (as am I). You read all his
books. But instead of buying them, you know where there's a blind spot in your
local bookstore where the mirrors can't catch you, so you just go in, grab his
latest book, shove it in your bag, and leave. Or, conversely, you borrow a
copy from the library, go to the office where you work and can use the copy
machine for free, photocopy the entire book and keep it.
You CAN do it, sure. But does that make it right?
There's this sub-section of the internet community who seem to feel that all
information should be free...and thus fail to distinguish between *data* and
*art*. Not understanding that distinction is pernicious.
The points you raise above are all well and good, but they don't get to the
*point* of it. Which is this:
The place of the artist in society is more fragile than most people really ever
understand. To stay with writers for a moment, only because I know that world
a little better -- but with the understanding that this applies to acting and
directing and other disciplines with equal appropriateness -- the average
writer in prose earns about $3,000 to $5,000 per year. They have to keep one
or two other jobs to sustain them, and that amount is crucial to their being
able to continue to write.
In television, the figures are also not great, despite what the public
perception may be. Roughly half of the Writers Guild is unemployed at any
given time. The average WGA member earns less per year than the average grade
school teacher, and if they're lucky they get maybe 2 assignments per year.
The top writers who earn consistently six figures constitute only 2% of the
entire membership of the Guild. The rest struggle to get by, and to contniue
to create the stories they tell. To that end, every dime is essential, as it
is to most people.
Perhaps the most crucial aspect of their work is residuals. Residuals aren't a
bonus, they aren't a gift, they're *deferred compensation* no different than
the royalties an author gets from his books (as noted above). If you were to
take away those residuals, well over the majority of working freelance writers
(and actors and directors) would be financially unable to continue to work full
time at their profession, and would have to get other jobs or leave the
business entirely.
Every time an episode of television airs, those responsible for it get a small
residual. And I do mean small. But it adds up in time. I'm not talking about
the major studios, or networks, or the advertisers...I'm talking about the guy
who sold 3 scripts that year, made maybe $30,000 for the entire year BEFORE
taxes, and knows that the two or three grand in extra income from residuals of
his prior work will mean he can have a decent Christmas this year.
This individual -- and the actors, directors, others -- get nothing from
internet downloads. And the more prevalent this becomes, the more fragile
becomes the life of artists, and there may come a point -- and I am not
exaggerating here -- where a lot of people can no longer afford to keep working
at their preferred profession because this makes the economics no longer
feasible.
"Well, they should keep at it anyway," some might say, "if they have to suffer
a little, that's their choice."
Is their suffering preferable to somebody having to actually buy a DVD? Is
their suffering or financial deterioration acceptable because the result --
putting their art on the net -- makes it more *convenient* for others?
There's this overwhelming sense of entitlement you see these days, where if you
WANT something then by god you're entitled to HAVE it, damn the consequences
for somebody else, and this is just one aspect of it.
This recently went to court with Harlan Ellison's case against AOL -- which was
finally settled out by AOL and new law further created to magnify this position
-- that those who upload short stories and novels onto the nets without
permission are commiting a crime. And if the role of the TV writer is
especially parlous, the fiscal position of prose writers is even MORE fragile.
So it seems to me an odd statement to say, "Boy, I really love this show, the
writing, the acting, the directing, so much that I'm going to steal from the
people who made it and hurt their income and possibly destroy their ability to
tell more such stories in future, THAT'S how much of a fan I am."
Yes, the prevalence of downloads does cut into reruns, and ratings, which in
today's highly fractionalized TV marketplace could spell the difference between
renewal or cancellation, because the advertisers look at the bottom line
numbers, and if they drop past a certain point, yes, the show goes away. And
yes, internet uploads of episodes will cut into that fragile calculation. And
yes, you may end up killing the very show you say you enjoy.
But even before you get to those computations, the act itself is simply wrong,
for all the reasons stated above.
The problem is that people don't like to be corrected, don't like to be told
that they're doing something wrong. They are defensive, and arrogant, and
pushy, and they feel that the world should give them anything they want because
they want it, period, and if anybody else has a problem with that, it's THEIR
problem.
The technical term for these people is deadbeats. The kind of guys who come to
stay at your house for a weekend, end up staying for a month, eating your food
without paying for it, using your car without sharing gas costs, and get pissed
off when you ask that they share the burden.
Me, I don't associate with guys like that.
Your mileage may vary.
jms
(jms...@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2004 by synthetic worlds, ltd.,
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine
and don't send me story ideas)
Charles Edmondson
Yep, Joe,
The basic problem has always been with us, do we allow ourselves the
easy way, and steal what we want, or pay for what we want.
There has always been a certain cachet to having 'gotten away' with
something, and have ill gotten gains from it. I say this, as one who in
the past obtained a great deal of software 'while singing sea faring
songs...' Also, the problem that many of the programs and material most
interesting to this population are not currently available by legitimate
means. The ability to just download that episode, or movie, or book
instead of having to wait months (or even forever, in some cases) to
obtain that desired object, makes it a very difficult proposition for
our modern, instant gratification, society.
So, Joe, the real problem is not to fight the means, since the
developments in file sharing and copying are going to progress much
faster than any enforcement efforts, but in the why, the motivations.
And if you have a good way to do that, they you really are a genius!
--
Charlie
--
Edmondson Engineering
Unique Solutions to Unusual Problems
Amy Guskin
(in article <20041207205024...@mb-m11.aol.com>):
>> -- where we were discussing (for almost two weeks now) downloading/file
>> sharing of tv shows (particularly SF) and the recent open letter from
>> the producers of Battlestar Galactica asking people not to download or
>> it will result in cancellation for the show.
>
>> ....and the issues we raised in *our* debate - summarised thusly:
>>
>> - whether downloading kills ratings/shows
>> - whether downloading helps to promote (or otherwise help) the show
>> - effectiveness/disenfranchisement of current ratings methodology
>> - downloading vs. VCR use
>> - whether downloading kills DVD sales
>> - whether downloading is illegal or not
>> - whether downloading is immoral or not
>> - and finally, the very concept of illegality vs. immorality
>
>> All this to wonder what your full thoughts are on the subject,
>
> You mean, aside from the fact that it's massively illegal? I mean, to a
> certain extent, the task here is to show that it's immoral to steal a car
> because one might scrape the paint or affect the business of local repair
> shops
> after it's been cargo-shipped to some distant city.
>
> But okay, I'll bite.<<
Really, really well done, Joe. I avoided replying to this one because -
well, because I'm tired of constantly beating the same drum on every
newsgroup and message board of which I'm a member.
You're absolutely right about this overblown sense of entitlement people have
with regard to their entertainment. The two statements I most often hear in
connection with copyright conversations are "But that's fair use" (nearly
always incorrectly attributed), and "Well, if the producer/artist/company
isn't making that show/album/dvd available, it's okay to download a copy,
since there's no other way I can get it."
Thanks also for providing some actual figures for perspective. To give an
example from my world, when I represented composers of serious music, the big
copyright issue was with regard to schools photocopying printed music - the
problem being mostly with choral music. When teachers were caught and
confronted, you could hear in their arguments that they imagined every
composer to be on an income level comparable to a John Williams or a Danny
Elfman. When in reality, many of those composers were lucky to get even a
handful of orchestra commissions a year. Some teach, but not all can get
positions. Orchestra commissions can run into five figures, but those are
only for the most prominent composers and from the most prominent performing
organizations. There are hundreds of ensembles in this country who don't
have the budget of a Cleveland Orchestra or a New York Philharmonic. So,
they're commissioning composers for a couple of thousand bucks a pop. Choral
music is sometimes commissioned, but not that frequently - mostly, a composer
is writing choral music because he loves the form, and can't _not_ write for
it. But it's definitely not the income-earning potential that orchestral
compositions are.
So the little money they get from the sales of printed music is important,
and photocopying music is, in many cases, actually taking food out of the
mouths of their families!
A composer who is making $30,000 a year - before taxes - on orchestra
commissions won't be able to afford to compose even a handful of chorus works
a year if schools keep stealing money from them by photocopying rather than
buying their music. So by enjoying the works of these composers, and wanting
to perform them - and feeling entitled to whether or not they can afford
printed copies - they are, ironically, impinging on that composer's ability
to compose more choral music. Or really, more music of any kind.
So, same story, different flavor.
Amy
--
http://www.zongoftheweek.com
Free and legal downloads of fun, original songs
This week's zong: "What I Ate on my Christmas Vacation"
This week's on Kids' Zong: A Big Sack of Christmas Zongs
SamusekTDS
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Jms at B5 wrote:
> The technical term for these people is deadbeats. The kind of guys who come to
> stay at your house for a weekend, end up staying for a month, eating your food
> without paying for it, using your car without sharing gas costs, and get pissed
> off when you ask that they share the burden.
>
> Me, I don't associate with guys like that.
>
> Your mileage may vary.
>
> jms
Well, not trying to argue - but just follow-up "questions":
1) In Canada, most downloading is so far not-illegal, but "grey".
2) There is a large chain of bookstores that encourages people to come
and sit and read, by putting chairs out all through the store. And
people do spend hours doing that.
3) What about downloading vs. VCR use?
4) What about reform of the current system? (ie: ratings, distribution, etc)
---
Sam.
Mark Alexander Bertenshaw
> On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 18:45:55 +0000 (UTC), "Mark Alexander Bertenshaw"
> <news...@mbertenshaw.plus.com> wrote:
>
>> Jeffrey Gustafson wrote:
>>> [Posted and mailed]
>>
>>> (aside from quality, natch)
>>
>> A totally side point: but what does "<comma> natch" actually mean?
>
> "Aside from quality, naturally".
>
> Hope the cold gets better soon, Mark!
>
> Paul.
Paul -
I suppose I should have guessed. As for the cold, it has finally cleared up
after over a week, thanks very much!
Andrew Swallow
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"Jms at B5" <jms...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20041207205024...@mb-m11.aol.com...
[snip]
> You mean, aside from the fact that it's massively illegal? I mean, to a
> certain extent, the task here is to show that it's immoral to steal a car
> because one might scrape the paint or affect the business of local repair
shops
> after it's been cargo-shipped to some distant city.
1. The laws on media copyright were not authorised by the
general public. They were got through Congress by a
mixture of enormous bribes and con tricks. Most
politicians thought they were industry only bills and
did not bother reading them. If warned that they were
handling proposed laws designed to send voters to
jail Congressmen would have negotiated every clause
and required a lot more proof.
Hollywood will be punished for that cheat.
Avoid jury trials against members of the audience,
juries do not like cheats.
Could similar laws to the current ones have been negotiated
with the general public? Probably but it would have taken
several years.
2. There is a difference between downloads and unpaid
downloads. PayPal and credit cards exists - use them.
Andrew Swallow
Laura Appelbaum
his
> books. But instead of buying them, you know where there's a blind spot in
your
> local bookstore where the mirrors can't catch you, so you just go in, grab
his
> latest book, shove it in your bag, and leave. Or, conversely, you borrow
a
> copy from the library, go to the office where you work and can use the
copy
> machine for free, photocopy the entire book and keep it.
Mea culpa! Mea culpa! I did this. Only it was either 1978 or 1979, the
book was the original D&D "Monster Manual" and the xerox machine in question
was in the high school principal's office (!) And if I had the actual book
today, I could, according to ebay, sell it for around $20. Instead, I've
lived the last 25 years in shame. <G>
Seriously, jms is right, especially when you're talking about digital
downloading versus the kind of inherently imperfect copy you get when you're
14 and run a book off while a friend is posted as look-out at the door, or
for that matter, when your home library of Babylon 5 seasons 2-5 is on
forty-some-odd cassette tapes with hundreds of commercials in between each
act.
If it wasn't wrong, y'all wouldn't have to post "justifications" of your
actions that are composed of multiple paragraphs either.
LMA
Derek Balling
[ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ]
[ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
> You mean, aside from the fact that it's massively illegal?
Legality and morality are not equal. There are places in this country
where it is illegal to marry someone whose levels of skin pigment are
different from your own. There are crappy laws just as there are crappy
things people do that are perfectly legal.
> I don't want to get too far into the "it's as if" part of this conversation,
> because in no time at all the conversation becomes about the metaphor instead
> of the thing itself...but to indulge that for just a moment....
You *say* you don't want to indulge in the metaphor, but you then
proceed to use the typical horribly flawed metaphor.
> Let's say you're a big fan of Jonathan Carroll (as am I). You read all his
> books. But instead of buying them, you know where there's a blind spot in
> your
> local bookstore where the mirrors can't catch you, so you just go in, grab his
> latest book, shove it in your bag, and leave. Or, conversely, you borrow a
> copy from the library, go to the office where you work and can use the copy
> machine for free, photocopy the entire book and keep it.
>
> You CAN do it, sure. But does that make it right?
No, because you've deprived the store of that *physical property*. It's
no longer there for them to make money on.
With someone downloading something, there is no "physical loss".
> The place of the artist in society is more fragile than most people really
> ever
> understand. To stay with writers for a moment, only because I know that world
> a little better -- but with the understanding that this applies to acting and
> directing and other disciplines with equal appropriateness -- the average
> writer in prose earns about $3,000 to $5,000 per year. They have to keep one
> or two other jobs to sustain them, and that amount is crucial to their being
> able to continue to write.
As an author of a published book, I can wholeheartedly back your
statement up. That's very true.
> [snip explanation of residuals]
> This individual -- and the actors, directors, others -- get nothing from
> internet downloads.
But... wait... at the moment, that individual isn't getting *anything*
for US-based individuals. It's only treading on the *possibility* of
residuals. And, in actuality, there's a couple other factors:
o People who are so fanatic as to spend four hours downloading an
online version of a TV episode are also likely to be watching it again
anyway when it airs
o People who aren't that fanatic -- people who download it, watch
it, and then could care less about the actual television airing --
probably weren't going to watch it past the first run anyway. This is
important because the first-run of the show is pretty much a sure
thing. It's paid for, they're going to air it, you're going to get your
residual for that airing. Now, any future airings (and thus, future
residuals) are going to be based upon the network's belief that there
will be repeat viewers. But those people who stole it who "never
watched it the first time" were never going to be a contributor to the
residuals anyway.
In other words, the residuals argument is a red herring. The two main
classes of people who download the video are either (a) people who are
going to keep watching it whenever you air it because they're uberfans,
or (b) people who could get a wet slap about (n>1) viewings of the
show, and were never going to help with future residuals anyway.
Thus, downloaders have *zero* effect on residuals.
Then there's the DVD argument, the people who dupe the crap out of
DVDs. These fall into a couple categories as well:
o People who dupe everything they can just to dupe everything they can.
Any studio who believes that the people who have DVD-R collections
with 10,000 movies on them were *really really* going to actually PAY
FOR 10,000 discs need to have their heads examined. This is money the
studios *weren't going to see anyway*.
o People who dupe individual titles that aren't available in their
market, or which are out of print
In almost every case, these are people who would *happily* give
money to the studios, but the studios don't want the sale. Since the
product is not available for sale to them, this is - again - money the
studio was never going to see.
o People who dupe individual titles that are locally available
In my years, I have yet to meet anyone in this category of
downloaders. I'll admit that they must logically exist somewhere, but
in all my years of travel, I've yet to encounter one.
> So it seems to me an odd statement to say, "Boy, I really love this show, the
> writing, the acting, the directing, so much that I'm going to steal from the
> people who made it and hurt their income and possibly destroy their ability to
> tell more such stories in future, THAT'S how much of a fan I am."
But downloading the show *isn't* actually stealing. As shown above, it
isn't taking a penny from their pockets.
> The problem is that people don't like to be corrected, don't like to be told
> that they're doing something wrong. They are defensive, and arrogant, and
> pushy, and they feel that the world should give them anything they want
> because they want it, period, and if anybody else has a problem with that, it's THEIR
> problem.
On the flip side of course, we have the studios, the guys who want to
tell me that if I want to watch the latest episode of Lost, which they
aired on TV for free, on my laptop while travelling across the country,
I've got to subject myself to three different levels of DRM to make
them happy.
For a product that they gave away for free over unencrypted and
unprotected airwaves.
> The technical term for these people is deadbeats. The kind of guys who come
> to stay at your house for a weekend, end up staying for a month, eating your food
> without paying for it, using your car without sharing gas costs, and get
> pissed off when you ask that they share the burden.
I think I speak for many people when I say that's a load of shite.
First, you feel the need to fall back on the ever-flawed "consumption
metaphor", where your "deadbeat" consumes things which then prevent
their consumption by others.
Second, in many cases, these are people who *want* to give money to the
rightsholders. Who *want* to be viewing the program via "approved"
methods. But the rightsholders do stupid things, like say "well, we'll
only let people in North America view our content."
If this was about "getting the rightsholders paid their due share" the
rightsholders would be bending over so far backwards that they could
kiss their ankles trying to get the data out there everywhere in
gazillions of formats, charging for all of them, and acknowledging that
the few remaining people who weren't willing to pay were people they
weren't going to get money from anyway because they're the type of
people who just don't pay for things.
Except, of course, that's not the way the rightsholders behave, is it?
You can draw your own conclusions from that when trying to figure out
what it is the rightsholders *do* care about.
Your mileage may vary.
D
Stuart Lamble
[snippage]
> 2) There is a large chain of bookstores that encourages people to come
> and sit and read, by putting chairs out all through the store. And
> people do spend hours doing that.
I was going to post a long comment on this subject, but I think the
essence of what I want to say is summed up best by Eric Flint. Have a
look at http://www.baen.com/library/ and consider a similar argument
applied to audiovisual material. It comes down to giving people a chance
to sample something before they fork out a significant sum of money on
it. Most people -- myself included -- wouldn't spend $400 on five
seasons of TV without being reasonably sure that they'll enjoy that
purchase. Downloading is one way of doing this (or would be if per
gigabyte charges in Australia weren't so ridiculously high...); putting
chairs out is another (in the case of books, anyway.)
Some people will freeload, yes. But in the case of the bookstores,
they're expecting that enough won't that they'll get more sales by
people checking out books that they're a little unsure of, getting
hooked, and then buying.
Matt Ion
> The technical term for these people is deadbeats. The kind of guys who come to
> stay at your house for a weekend, end up staying for a month, eating your food
> without paying for it, using your car without sharing gas costs, and get pissed
> off when you ask that they share the burden.
>
> Me, I don't associate with guys like that.
>
> Your mileage may vary.
That said, I'd like to point out that the industry reaction
(entertainment industry in general - music, tv, movies, etc.) hasn't
been a whole lot better. I don't dispute that these activities are
illegal, but the industry in general has taken after it with a
use-a-howitzer-to-kill-a-fly approach and really haven't done anything
to help the situation.
Instead of recognizing the potential from the very start and working to
update ancient copyright laws and put the technology to work FOR them in
an intelligent manner, we have what amounts to a bunch of
stuck-in-the-60s fat cats whose only recourse for any slight is to throw
lawyers at it.
The first thing they fail to realize is that the widespread propogation
of Napster was due mostly to the fact that it was EASY TO USE, not that
music was free. You start the program, you type in the name of a song
or artist, and within seconds you have a list of songs... select one or
more and click "Download" and there you go - what could be simpler?
Thing is, song-trading had already been going on for years via web, ftp
sites, IRC chat channels, and various other methods, most of which
required at least a passing knowledge of the workings of the 'net.
Napster removed that requirement.
Second mistake they made was to immediately slap Napster down and turn
it into a David-vs.-Goliath battle: these kinds of things only raise the
hackles of your average hacker/net-freedom-fighter/etc. and make them
dig in deeper. Instead of working with them on a more amicable level
from the start to turn it into a legitimate system, they drove it
further underground, and fractured the user base into using a
less-centralized, harder-to-track variety of other similar systems -
your Limewires, Bearshares, etc. that would never have flourished to the
level they did if everyone hadn't been chased off Napster with a big
stick.
Dropping lawsuits on the proverbial grandmothers and 12-year-olds served
them little good but to make them look like big-buck mafia thugs; yes,
they were downloading illegally, but this is NOT a good way to turn
public opinion to your way of thinking. All people see is the
cigar-chomping three-piece-suited music-biz pig and not the artists that
are being the most affected; the industry looks like a bad guy instead
of the injured party.
I've heard about attempts now in the US to slap a levy on blank
recording media to help offset the losses to downloading. Something
similar has been in place for some time now in Canada and the people
responsible are pushing to have it expanded even more. Let's examine
the absurdity of this little gem:
As of Dec. 12, 2003, Canadian retailers have been required to attach a
levy to various blank media. These funds are supposed to be put into a
fund to disburse to Canadian music artists to offset their supposed
losses to downloading. The levy right now is this:
29 cents each on audio cassette tapes 40 minutes or longer
77 cents each on audio-specific CD-R, CD-RW and MiniDisc
21 cents each on standard CD-R and CD-RW
Digital media devices (iPods and the like) with embedded storage are
also charged:
$2 per unit for those with <1GB storage
$15/unit for 1GB-10GB
$25/unit for those 10GB and up
First of all, this automaticall assumes everyone who buys a blank tape,
CD, MiniDisc, or media player is going to be loading it with pirated
music. Guilty unless proven innocent? Dammit... assumed guilty, and
pay the penalty up front... no appeal.
It's also giving Canadian artists a cut every time I use a CD to backup
my personal data... or a cassette tape to record a wedding... or load
music from my own purchased, legal CDs onto my Nomad MP3 player (okay,
not every time, but you get the idea).
The funny thing is, none of it goes to American or other international
artists... none goes to the TV or film industry at all... I could buy a
stack 100 CD-Rs and pirate Asian movies and Microsoft software all day
long, and my $21 worth of levy goes to Bryan Adams and Celine Dion.
The really evil part is that these people have been pushing lately to
expand the levy, not only to all types of flash media, DVD blanks, an
even mini hard drives, but they want to increase it SIGNIFICANTLY. The
proposed additions are:
60 cents per 40-minute-or-longer audio cassette
$1.23 per audio CD-R/RW
59 cents per standard CD-R/RW
$2.27 per DVD+/-R/RW/RAM (DVD blanks can currently be bought in bulk for
as little as 60 cents each - this would make the levy nearly 380% the
cost of the disc itself!)
2.1 cents per megabyte or $21 per gigabyte on any form of
flash-memory-based or hard-drive-based media players... that would add
$840 to the regular $530 cost of a 40GB iPod!
They also want 0.8 cents per megabyte for removable flash-memory or
micro-drive memory cards - that means the 512MB CompactFlash card in my
digital camera would have been subject to an additional $4.10 levy...
more money for Bryan and Celine so I can have storage for my own
personal photos. Just on the ASSUMPTION that that card MAY SOMEDAY be
used to playback pirated music...
Oh... what I really get a kick out of these days are the ads they're
running before movies in the theater... the supposed props guy, begging
us not download movies, thereby taking food off his table... hey buddy,
you got paid LONG before anyone even HEARD about the movie, let alone
downloaded it. Gimme a break.
Yes, I agree, it's all illegal... but the industry has to stop and think
rationally about how to proceed if they ever hope to counter it
effectively, rather than continue on the way they have been, basically
spraying their customer base with a legal shotgun.
Stanley Friesen
> [snip]
>The place of the artist in society is more fragile than most people really ever
>understand. To stay with writers for a moment, only because I know that world
>a little better -- but with the understanding that this applies to acting and
>directing and other disciplines with equal appropriateness -- the average
>writer in prose earns about $3,000 to $5,000 per year. They have to keep one
>or two other jobs to sustain them, and that amount is crucial to their being
>able to continue to write.
To summarize: the starving artist is *more* than just a cliche, it is
reality.
> ...
>Perhaps the most crucial aspect of their work is residuals. Residuals aren't a
>bonus, they aren't a gift, they're *deferred compensation* no different than
>the royalties an author gets from his books (as noted above). If you were to
>take away those residuals, well over the majority of working freelance writers
>(and actors and directors) would be financially unable to continue to work full
>time at their profession, and would have to get other jobs or leave the
>business entirely.
And this is the original, basic, reason for copyright law. To protect
the income of the *individual* *artist*. To a large extent this has
been forgotten as large corporate lobbies have re-oriented the system
towards protection of big business (such as the recent copyright
extension for Mickey Mouse). But this does not change the basic issue:
copyright is there to ensure the artists get *something* for their work!
>
>Every time an episode of television airs, those responsible for it get a small
>residual. And I do mean small. But it adds up in time. I'm not talking about
>the major studios, or networks, or the advertisers...I'm talking about the guy
>who sold 3 scripts that year, made maybe $30,000 for the entire year BEFORE
>taxes, and knows that the two or three grand in extra income from residuals of
>his prior work will mean he can have a decent Christmas this year.
Which is why I always make sure to purchase any DVDs of films I intend
to watch.
>
>This individual -- and the actors, directors, others -- get nothing from
>internet downloads. And the more prevalent this becomes, the more fragile
>becomes the life of artists, and there may come a point -- and I am not
>exaggerating here -- where a lot of people can no longer afford to keep working
>at their preferred profession because this makes the economics no longer
>feasible.
However, what I would *like* to see is some sort of iTunes-like system
set up for visual media, where the presentations are *purchased* by the
people downloading them, and all the relevant people get their
appropriate cut (specifically including residuals).
I would also hope that such on-line *purchases* would count towards the
ratings in some manner - on the grounds of showing in a *measurable* way
the popularity of the show.
Now, I know there are significant issues in arriving at this place, made
worse, unfortunately, by the tendency of deadbeats to cheat and download
stuff for free.
[P.S. How does iTunes keep this from getting out of hand?]
>
>There's this overwhelming sense of entitlement you see these days, where if you
>WANT something then by god you're entitled to HAVE it, damn the consequences
>for somebody else, and this is just one aspect of it.
Agreed.
--
The peace of God be with you.
Stanley Friesen
Steve Lamb
> You mean, aside from the fact that it's massively illegal?
I hate to say it but legality isn't what it once was. Let's not forget
that Fair Use is under severe attack from corporate interests and has been for
a generation or so. One should always question the legality of something
based on whether or not it is just. An unjust law is not one that should
remain on the books. I think you've covered that sentiment nicely in Babylon
5 except it was unjust order instead of an unjust law. ;)
> I don't want to get too far into the "it's as if" part of this conversation,
> because in no time at all the conversation becomes about the metaphor
> instead of the thing itself...but to indulge that for just a moment....
Then it is best to design a metaphor which fits and is not flawed.
> Let's say you're a big fan of Jonathan Carroll (as am I). You read all his
> books. But instead of buying them, you know where there's a blind spot in
> your local bookstore where the mirrors can't catch you, so you just go in,
> grab his latest book, shove it in your bag, and leave.
Bad example. This is theft of a material object which also contains the
data under question. There is an defined loss because of the materials used.
That loss does not occur in internet trading. But I'll get to that in a
second.
> Or, conversely, you borrow a copy from the library, go to the office where
> you work and can use the copy machine for free, photocopy the entire book
> and keep it.
Again, a defined loss. Here it is to the business for the use of the
copier, the paper used to copy it, the productive time lost by the employee on
coping it. None of those apply to internet trading. But something you said
in there does.
Said person borrows a copy from the library. As a writer you're paid for
your work, in part, by the royalties on the sale of your book. As such the
problem in the second example is not said person copies the book but that
*said person /borrowed/ the book in the first place!* He has read your work.
He has not paid for it. One copy can be read by hundreds if not thousands of
people. In short thanks to libraries you, the author, are out tens to
hundreds of dollars *per library*.
Borrow from a library - download from the internet. The net result to
you, the author, is the same. You make money. That is fact that has been
verified by Eric Flint. See this URL: <http://www.baen.com/library/>. Baen
has distributed 5 CDs worth of books in multiple formats and they have
increased sales because of it. They enourage people to share those books far
and wide. They don't restrict it to "you may share this CD". No, free,
unlimited copying with the only restriction being noone can profit from it.
So if you want to get down on internet sharing where no physical loss is
suffered then you are also arguing against libraries for their sharing without
paying the authors as well as sharing in general. I lend a friend of mine a
book you, the author, are supposedly out royalties. Doesn't matter if that
book happens to be my paperback copy of _Rising Stars, Vol 1._ or a virtual
copy. You're supposedly out a sale either way.
I don't think you're against friends lending friends books or libraries in
general, are you?
> The place of the artist in society is more fragile than most people really
> ever understand. To stay with writers for a moment, only because I know
> that world a little better -- but with the understanding that this applies
> to acting and directing and other disciplines with equal appropriateness --
> the average writer in prose earns about $3,000 to $5,000 per year. They
> have to keep one or two other jobs to sustain them, and that amount is
> crucial to their being able to continue to write.
To the writer word of mouth is the best form of advertisement. Their
books being checked out of a library, a friend lends a friend a book of
thiers. Internet sharing being the ultimate form of word-of-mouth. It costs
the author nothing and in turn they reap benefits. See Eric's Essay above.
> Perhaps the most crucial aspect of their work is residuals. Residuals
> aren't a bonus, they aren't a gift, they're *deferred compensation* no
> different than the royalties an author gets from his books (as noted above).
So does it not then stand to reason that the net effect might be the same?
> If you were to take away those residuals, well over the majority of working
> freelance writers (and actors and directors) would be financially unable to
> continue to work full time at their profession, and would have to get other
> jobs or leave the business entirely.
But there has been no link between sharing and a loss of residuals. Nor
has there been an increase because noone, thus far, has done what Eric Flint
did and tried it instead of fear it because it is simply unknown.
> This individual -- and the actors, directors, others -- get nothing from
> internet downloads.
Except word of mouth advertisement which is free.
> Is their suffering preferable to somebody having to actually buy a DVD? Is
> their suffering or financial deterioration acceptable because the result --
> putting their art on the net -- makes it more *convenient* for others?
No, the question here is whether their fears are justified.
> There's this overwhelming sense of entitlement you see these days, where if
> you WANT something then by god you're entitled to HAVE it, damn the
> consequences for somebody else, and this is just one aspect of it.
Yes, there is. Normally put forth by those on the left side of the
political spectrum. ;)
> This recently went to court with Harlan Ellison's case against AOL -- which
> was finally settled out by AOL and new law further created to magnify this
> position -- that those who upload short stories and novels onto the nets
> without permission are commiting a crime. And if the role of the TV writer
> is especially parlous, the fiscal position of prose writers is even MORE
> fragile.
Then why would the refuse permission for people to dissiminate their work.
If people like it they'll look for more. Looking for more means that people
are interested and are often willing to pay to gain access to more.
> So it seems to me an odd statement to say, "Boy, I really love this show,
> the writing, the acting, the directing, so much that I'm going to steal from
> the people who made it and hurt their income and possibly destroy their
> ability to tell more such stories in future, THAT'S how much of a fan I am."
Yes, it is, isn't it? So then the libraries which check out DVDs should
stop? When I have my friends over I should keep my 6 boxes of B5 DVD sealed
shut and say, "Have you seen this show before? Geez, this is a great show
with an awesome plot, great acting and awesome storytelling. But I can't let
you see any of it without paying first as that would be stealing from the
writers, producers, directors, actors, gaffers, make-up artists...."
> Yes, the prevalence of downloads does cut into reruns, and ratings,
Cite? I'd be interested in any such study even being attempted. Of
course it would also have to ask the question would such a prevailance of
downloads also decrease or increase DVD sales?
> But even before you get to those computations, the act itself is simply
> wrong, for all the reasons stated above.
Again, I ask, is lending a book a crime? Lending a DVD? Having a few
friends over to see an episode of Babylon 5? In each case the net effect is
the same: the art is distributed to more people without them paying for it but
without the loss of any physical component.
> The problem is that people don't like to be corrected, don't like to be told
> that they're doing something wrong. They are defensive, and arrogant, and
> pushy, and they feel that the world should give them anything they want
> because they want it, period, and if anybody else has a problem with that,
> it's THEIR problem.
It is their problem; esp. when it comes to business interests reducing my
rights through the ever increasing war on fair use without viable and
reasonable alternatives. Just as you have the right what initial distribution
methods are used *I* have the right to redistribute that work through other
methods which have, up to this point, been rarely argued against. I can lend
my books. I can show my friends a show when they come over. I can sell/buy
books/movies at used book/movie stores. The question isn't if sharing is
illegal because lord help us if it is. Kidergarden classes around the nation
would have to have crayon monitors. No, the question is whether or not this
new form of sharing (IE, no material loss) is significantly different from all
prior forms of sharing (which have no material loss).
You think it is. I, and others, don't think so.
> The technical term for these people is deadbeats. The kind of guys who come
> to stay at your house for a weekend, end up staying for a month, eating your
> food without paying for it, using your car without sharing gas costs, and
> get pissed off when you ask that they share the burden.
Material loss, material loss and material loss again.
> Me, I don't associate with guys like that.
> Your mileage may vary.
So you equate file sharers with deadbeats. Your presumption is that any
file shared is a sale lost, period. That is verifiably untrue. You are
making the presumption that those who share files (as opposed to books, dvds
or other material methods of sharing) instantly and without exception never
purchase anything or, as you put it, "get pissed off when you ask that they
share the burden."
Like it or not you *do* associate with us. We're consumers. I'll freely
admit I had some episodes of Babylon 5 prior to the 6 DVD box sets and 2 DVD
movie compilations I own. You, sir, lost no sales there and you certainly
associated to me through my purchase of your works.
If you feel so strongly about this then I turn myself in. Here are my
crimes against you:
I purchased all 5 seasons of Babylon 5 and watched them with my wife who
did not pay for the priveledge.
I lent Season 1 of Babylon 5 to my parents so they may view it without
paying for the privledge.
I bought _Babylon 5: Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant_ from a used book
store from which no royalties are derived.
I allowed, no... encouraged my wife to read the Technomage series, the
Centauri Prime series and the Psi Corps series of babylon 5 books without
charging for it or passing on your due compensation.
I lent out several of my Babylon 5 books to coworkers without charing for
it or passing on your due compensation.
If you feel that these are not crimes against you then please, enlighten
me, on how they are any different than any other form where the art which is
separate from the medium that carres it is transferred from one person to
another?
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------
Steve Lamb
> As of Dec. 12, 2003, Canadian retailers have been required to attach a
> levy to various blank media. These funds are supposed to be put into a
> fund to disburse to Canadian music artists to offset their supposed
> losses to downloading. The levy right now is this:
> 29 cents each on audio cassette tapes 40 minutes or longer
> 77 cents each on audio-specific CD-R, CD-RW and MiniDisc
> 21 cents each on standard CD-R and CD-RW
And let's not forget that there is absolutely no physical difference
between a "data" and "music" CD-R/CD-RW. NONE. It's 1 bit in the stored data
that all CDs have to identify itself to the player. 0 or 1 it's data, the
opposite of data is music. That's it.
Of course the extent of that 1-bit is profound. The industry has strong
armed manufactuers to have their non-computer CD drives ID "data" discs and
refuse to play them while having computer CD drives ID "music" discs and
refuse to play them.
Steve Lamb
> If it wasn't wrong, y'all wouldn't have to post "justifications" of your
> actions that are composed of multiple paragraphs either.
That reasoning would make the bill of rights "wrong" as they are
justifications for sensible behavior in a civilized socity... or something.
:P
Steve Lamb
> On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 03:13:35 +0000 (UTC), SamusekTDS
> Probably not in its home market, no. But in other markets, certainly.
Well, there's always the Baen argument for the home market showing an
increase in purchases. But there is a prime example of how new markets are
seeded by "illegal sharing". Anime. 20 years ago if you wanted to see Anime
it was either Sandy Frank/Carl Macek hack of the original series for American
TV or bootleg copies, with or without fan subs, of tapes brought over from
Japan. Nowadays it is a multi-million dollar industry here in America with
even Unka Disney getting its cut.
Pelzo63
<< [P.S. How does iTunes keep this from getting out of hand?] >>
files purchased from itunes store are not mp3's, they are a proprietary
encrypted form of mp4 called .aac. the file, in it's original form has a
limited # of copies available for it, i believe it stops at 5. once it's copied
5 times, it can't be copied again. it also can be converted to standard audio
cd format and burned to a CD. once it is on CD, nothing prevents it from
being copied unlimitedly. it can be re-converted to mp3, or aac, or any other
format you like. however, it doesn't "get out of hand" on the theory that
someone who shelled out a small but fair amount($1) of $ for a song won't go
through all the trouble of buying, burning, ripping, and uploading. when they
can just tell their cheapwad buddies "here's a friggin buck, buy it yourself!"
given the runaway success of itunes, i think it's worked.
btw, itunes doens't ONLY have music, they also have audio books ;-) </plug>
...Chris
People like you make me want to access your brain, and type rm -r -f /
Pelzo63
armed manufactuers to have their non-computer CD drives ID "data" discs and
refuse to play them while having computer CD drives ID "music" discs and
refuse to play them. >
i have never encountered a problem using a computer to burn to any type of
cd-r, data or music. however, i have encountered problems burning to data on a
standalone music burner.
Matt Ion
> Well, not trying to argue - but just follow-up "questions":
>
> 1) In Canada, most downloading is so far not-illegal, but "grey".
Sort of.
Copyright infringement is still copyright infringement, but whether
getting copyrighted materials via P2P programs is illegal is currently
up for debate.
See, DISTRIBUTING copyrighted material in Canada is illegal, but
apparently, RECEIVING it isn't. Thus, DOWNLOADING it isn't illegal.
Knowinly making it available for download is, BUT... one, having a
file-sharing app on your computer isn't; two, having copies of movies,
music, etc. on your computer isn't (you are still allowed to make copies
for personal use); and three, having those files accessible to the
file-sharing software doesn't, according to the ruling, prove that you
are distributing or intended to distribute. Several Canadians, IIRC,
recently slipped out from under a record industry lawsuit with this ruling.
Or something very much like that - it was a few months ago, and I'm
familiar with it only to the extent of what I've read in a few newspaper
and tech-magazine articles. The decision itself is probably available
online somewhere, for someone interested in more details.
In any case, it still doesn't exclude the fact that copyright
infringement is illegal - it only addresses one method of accomplishing it.
> 2) There is a large chain of bookstores that encourages people to come
> and sit and read, by putting chairs out all through the store. And
> people do spend hours doing that.
Not really the same thing, as you still can't take the book (or a
reproduction of it) home with you without buying it, and reading some
books takes too long to be done simply sitting in a bookstore. It also
doesn't let you keep that book around for re-reading and reference.
It's more similar in concept to music on the radio - you can listen to
it while it's there, you have little control over exactly what is played
and when, but the ultimate goal is to entice you to buy your own copy.
> 3) What about downloading vs. VCR use?
Okay, this is an area I have an issue with, particularly when it comes
to music. However, to keep it in the video perspective:
I rarely have a chance to catch any or all of our local weekly
broadcasts of Stargate: Atlantis. If my damn tuner-card drivers didn't
crash randomly, I'd be able to record the show to my computer and watch
it at my leisure. This is legal and fully acceptable.
However, given the unstable condition of my tuner card, this exercise is
rarely successful. So is it wrong for me to get a copy from someone
else who HAS recorded it? Put it another way: is it illegal for me to
borrow a VHS tape that a friend has recorded of a show that I missed?
Most would probably say no. So why is downloading a recording of a
broadcast show considered illegal? There is no practical difference
other than the technology involved. And if I were to record it to my
computer myself, the only difference is who's machine actually made the
recording: unlike with music and movies, this is a BROADCAST show that
EVERYONE has the opportunity (if not the capability) to record LEGALLY
for later enjoyment.
I have a significant problem with the music-downloading issue in this
area as well.
If I buy a CD, I am given a license for personal use. I can legally
make any number of backup CDs, tape copies, even MP3 copies FOR MY OWN
USE. The idea with the backup is that if my original is broken,
damaged, or, presumably, stolen, I still have a copy of the material
that I have bought a legitimate license for.
Now what if, instead of ripping my own CD to MP3 copies, I download
those songs from someone else? Is that still illegal? I have already
paid for my copy of that material; I have the original media to prove my
ownership.
So now assume someone steals my original CD - I still have the backup
copy that I'm legally entitled to, be it in CD, tape, or MP3 format.
The THIEF, the CRIMINAL here, the one who's really cheating the artist,
is the person who lifted my original CD, no? No different than if he'd
walked into a music store and slipped it inside his jacket. I've
already given my money for my right to own a copy of the material.
Okay... so now let's imagine that I've had CDs stolen since before the
time it was practical to make CD backups... my original copy of Def
Leppard's "Pyromania", for example, one of the first albums released on
CD. I've bought it (twice, actually - on CD and vinyl), I have my legal
right to my copies (still have the LP, actually), the artists have my
money... why is it illegal for me to obtain new copies of the songs from
someone else now? I'm not cheating the artists - they already have my
money. Go after the punk who stole my CD!
This is the problem with how the entertainment industry in general is
addressing the whole issue: assume downloading is bad and everyone who
does it is a criminal, no grey area, just slap'em down with lawsuit and
threats.
Copyright laws must be updated to reflect changing technologies, and in
a reasonable, intelligent fashion, to address cases such as those listed
above, rather than simply assuming that any transfer of material from
one computer to another is always a criminal activity.
Paul Harper
<gr...@mail.dmiyu.org> wrote:
>On 2004-12-07, Paul Harper <pa...@harper.net> wrote:
>> On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 03:13:35 +0000 (UTC), SamusekTDS
>>>- whether downloading helps to promote (or otherwise help) the show
>
>> Probably not in its home market, no. But in other markets, certainly.
>
> Well, there's always the Baen argument for the home market showing an
>increase in purchases. But there is a prime example of how new markets are
>seeded by "illegal sharing". Anime. 20 years ago if you wanted to see Anime
>it was either Sandy Frank/Carl Macek hack of the original series for American
>TV or bootleg copies, with or without fan subs, of tapes brought over from
>Japan. Nowadays it is a multi-million dollar industry here in America with
>even Unka Disney getting its cut.
I hadn't thought of that - yes, you're right. There are so many
instances where this practice encourages business, does no harm or
makes no difference anyway, that the knee-jerk reactionaries who wave
their arms in the air whineing "it's illegal, it's illegal" have
clearly not analysed the issue beyond their own entrenched interests.
So come on you teevee/movie people - provide us with a legitimate way
of getting these things that is cheap, easy and hassle-free. You only
have yourself to blame if you don't. [1]
The problem with being an ostrich with your head in the sand is that
it leaves your butt in the air. That's just too much of a tempting
target for people with shotguns... <grin>
Paul.
[1] And while you're at it, stop mucking around (language severely curtailed
to get the moderators to allow the posting through!) with the Blu-Ray
/ HD-DVD argument, will you! Just sort it.
Stuart Lamble
> Now, I know there are significant issues in arriving at this place, made
> worse, unfortunately, by the tendency of deadbeats to cheat and download
> stuff for free.
>
> [P.S. How does iTunes keep this from getting out of hand?]
A combination of factors. First, you can only download from iTMS if you
pay. No pay, no download. Second, there's some (light-ish) DRM on the
files, raising the bar a little higher for those who want to do the
wrong thing (although not super high; you can still burn at will to a
CD, and rip from that). Third is the factor that enough people will do
the right thing, if it's convenient, that the lossage isn't sufficiently
high to be overly concerned about.
Kinda like holding water in your hands, I guess. The harder you try to
hold it, the more seeps through between your fingers. Some will always
seep, but keeping the hands open lets you hold more, for longer, than
you could otherwise.
There will always be deadbeats. You need to make it as easy as possible
for people to do the right thing, and balance the price between the need
to make a living, and people's desire to get value for their money.
Jms at B5
>
>1) In Canada, most downloading is so far not-illegal, but "grey".
>
I don't know the Canadian laws well enough to comment intelligently.
>2) There is a large chain of bookstores that encourages people to come
>and sit and read, by putting chairs out all through the store. And
>people do spend hours doing that.
Apples and oranges. Libraries do that as well. The few stores I've heard
about who do that have found it encourages sales, because readers have more of
a chance to decide. So it benefits the writers and publishers. They don't get
to leave with the books they're reading.
>3) What about downloading vs. VCR use?
Again, apples/oranges. If you have it on a VCR, it's because it's been
broadcast to you, and you have your copy, and the system is legal. When you
digitize it and make multiple copies available, then you are no longer keeping
a single record for your archives, you are becoming a distributer without a
license.
>4) What about reform of the current system? (ie: ratings, distribution, etc)
>---
Not only apples/oranges, we've gone out of the produce section
entirely...different matter entirely.
Hal Vaughan
> [ The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set. ]
>
> [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ]
>
> [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
>
> Jms at B5 wrote:
>> The technical term for these people is deadbeats. The kind of guys who
>> come to stay at your house for a weekend, end up staying for a month,
>> eating your food without paying for it, using your car without sharing
>> gas costs, and get pissed off when you ask that they share the burden.
>>
>> Me, I don't associate with guys like that.
>>
>> Your mileage may vary.
>>
>> jms
>
> Well, not trying to argue - but just follow-up "questions":
>
> 1) In Canada, most downloading is so far not-illegal, but "grey".
Just because it's legal doesn't mean it is the right thing to do. Or did
you read the whole post? That's a minor, picky point. It'd be legal for
me to triple the prices for the services my company offers. I'm about the
only one who provides the services I do. It's legal. That doesn't mean
it's fair or right.
> 2) There is a large chain of bookstores that encourages people to come
> and sit and read, by putting chairs out all through the store. And
> people do spend hours doing that.
It's called browsing. People read parts of books to decide if they want to
buy them. How many times do you see someone sitting in a bookstore reading
an entire book? As I just said in another post on this branch, there was a
time when I couldn't afford the tech books I needed for programming (I
could buy one or two a month), so I had to go to the store and re-read
sections until I knew them. I got by without buying the book -- but in the
long run I usually did buy it. If it was that helpful to me all the way
across town, you can imagine how often I used it when I bought it and it
was on my shelf, within arm's reach.
> 3) What about downloading vs. VCR use?
Downloading is one person putting it out there for everybody to get it.
Taping on a VCR or DVR (or whatever), and timeshifting, keeping it for
yourself, or letting a friend or two see it is an entirely different
situation. It might be worth noting that in many cases, people who taped
shows often later bought commercial tapes or DVDs (I had every episode of
ST:TNG and B5 on tape, and a lot of DS9. I'll be buying all on DVD as soon
as I can afford them).
> 4) What about reform of the current system? (ie: ratings, distribution,
> etc) ---
While that may be necessary, what's wrong with reforming the people who
think they have a right to whatever they want? What's wrong with teaching
them that they should actually earn what they get? You're picking at nits
to avoid seeing the bigger picture: downloading movies, tv shows, music is
morally wrong. Is that so hard for you to grasp? Even if you reform the
system, the point is that a network makes money based on how many people
are watching a show. If it costs an advertiser a penny to reach each
person watching, yet only a few thousand are watching (because everyone
else doesn't want to see re-runs since they downloaded it), then the
advertiser won't pay much money, and the network will, instead, run
something they can charge more for. It's not a "system" that can be easily
reformed. It's based on how much an advertiser will pay to reach a certain
number of people. If not enough people are watching (because they download
instead), it doesn't work. What do you want to do to reform it? Charge
advertisers more than they're willing to pay?
> Sam.
Hal
Thunder v.2.0.0.4
> They also want 0.8 cents per megabyte for removable flash-memory or
> micro-drive memory cards - that means the 512MB CompactFlash card in my
> digital camera would have been subject to an additional $4.10 levy...
> more money for Bryan and Celine so I can have storage for my own
> personal photos. Just on the ASSUMPTION that that card MAY SOMEDAY be
> used to playback pirated music...
This seriously pisses me off because you're completely right. I want to
back up my stories on to CD. They are *my* intellectual property but I
have to pay some dick working for the media industry because he thinks
I'm stealing songs/something! So, I should lose money off my own
property for a perceived loss...?
I mean sure people are going to steal music/whatever and burn it, but
not every use of blank media is illegitimate. Furthermore, I've heard
stories that the music and entertainment industries are experiencing
major gains of late, downloads or no.
> Oh... what I really get a kick out of these days are the ads they're
> running before movies in the theater... the supposed props guy, begging
> us not download movies, thereby taking food off his table... hey buddy,
> you got paid LONG before anyone even HEARD about the movie, let alone
> downloaded it. Gimme a break.
Yeah, really! He's making like $50/hour to build a set (or whatever)...
I make less then $10/hour. Cry me a river, buddy! (I don't steal movies
from the internet either, btw).
t.k.
Thunder v.2.0.0.4
Game..." thread, I'd like to point out that at one time the music was
available for purchase from Sonic Images (in Liquid Audio format). I
*did* purchase the files legally at that time (and later, someone had
re-encoded them as mp3s and I got copies from their site). This music is
no longer available anywhere (to my knowledge) and that's why I offered
it to Phantom Steve.
If Chris Franke/WB ever offers the music for sale on a CD I *will*
buy it (and I'm sure many other fans would as well--hint to Sonic
Images, there). I have many S.I. CDs (seven, I think) with B5 music on
them, so I'm not trying to rip Franke off or anything.
t.k.
Paul Harper
wrote:
>btw, itunes doens't ONLY have music, they also have audio books ;-) </plug>
I wish they'd have more. I love the things - great for my 2-hour
commute into London each day :-)
Paul.
Paul Harper
<l-app...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>when your home library of Babylon 5 seasons 2-5 is on
>forty-some-odd cassette tapes with hundreds of commercials in between each
>act.
Or like mine, which consists of *every* commercial B5 and Crusade VHS
tape, *every* B5 and Crusade DVD and pretty much *every* B5 audio CD
from Chris Franke. All purchased at full price as they were issued.
Someone somewhere has made a mountain of money out of my affection for
B5.
So - Do I feel guilty about downloading the Rangers TV movie which is
not as far as I know available anywhere to buy?
Not one little bit and I forcefully reject the concept that I may be
criminalised by doing so.
I don't *care* if it's illegal - not one little bit - if the suits
won't allow me to buy it I will get it some other way. Let 'em sue me.
The failure is at their end, not mine.
To lump all downloaders into one huge category is blinkered and
shallow, and I am frankly disappointed at some of the attitudes here.
It's like saying all people who enjoy an alcoholic drink are
alcoholics. And just as credible.
Stuart Lamble
> sarima wrote:
>
><< [P.S. How does iTunes keep this from getting out of hand?] >>
>
> files purchased from itunes store are not mp3's, they are a proprietary
> encrypted form of mp4 called .aac.
Not quite. AAC, in and of itself, is not encrypted, subject to DRM, or
anything of the sort. AAC is a well defined spec, and anybody who wants
to is free to implement it, subject to the usual rights and royalties
issues (and I don't know what those are vis-a-vis AAC.)
The encryption comes from a DRM wrapper, known as FairPlay. AAC +
FairPlay is what you get from iTMS. There are programs available that
will strip the DRM wrapper from an AAC file; Apple has worked to make
those not work (with only moderate success.)
> the file, in it's original form has a
> limited # of copies available for it, i believe it stops at 5. once it's
> copied 5 times, it can't be copied again.
Again, not quite true. You can copy it as many times as you want.
However, iTunes will not play the file unless the given system has been
authorised to do so by the person who downloaded the file in the first
place. Only five systems can be so authorised at any one time.
> it also can be converted to
> standard audio cd format and burned to a CD. once it is on CD, nothing
> prevents it from being copied unlimitedly. it can be re-converted to
> mp3, or aac, or any other format you like.
This is true. :) Just bear in mind that expanding and re-compressing
files that have been compressed with a lossy scheme (which includes MP3,
AAC, Ogg Vorbis, and a few others) will result in artifacts in the audio
which may -- or may not -- be of concern. In other words: what you get
by doing this is not the same as what you get from the original file.
Rob Perkins
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Jms at B5 wrote:
> But okay, I'll bite.
[It's wrong. DON'T DO IT]
Of course it's wrong. Bravo, Joe.
> There's this overwhelming sense of entitlement you see these days, where if you
> WANT something then by god you're entitled to HAVE it, damn the consequences
> for somebody else, and this is just one aspect of it.
[...]
> But even before you get to those computations, the act itself is simply wrong,
> for all the reasons stated above.
It doesn't make it right, but haven't the advertisers themselves (in
aggregate) created this universe, with advertising messages which more
or less say this? That is, I know I've been told just that all my life
by the content of television ads.
So... you have art and "commercial art product" in the form of TV,
radio, print magazines, and so forth, interspersed with messages that I
ought to have what is advertised RIGHT NOW, and I don't have to wait for
it, and I can mortgage my house for it and get cash and so forth.
The only thing that countered that were the constant promptings from my
parents not to pay any attention to that. The rest of the influences in
my life have been to tend towards civil disobedience and selfishness.
Then I attend a university or school where relativism and
multiculturalism (one kind of multiculturalism) is taught. At that
university are people who actively and openly teach the "information
wants to be free" schlock and encourage civil and liturgical
disobedience when faced with causes counter to certain principles.
> The problem is that people don't like to be corrected, don't like to be told
> that they're doing something wrong. They are defensive, and arrogant, and
> pushy, and they feel that the world should give them anything they want because
> they want it, period, and if anybody else has a problem with that, it's THEIR
> problem.
In short we've been training our kids to steal art since about 1969.
I was born then, and my interest in computers and my teenage years
coincided exactly with those issues in connection with the Commodore 64
and Apple II time period, in which copying software was very prevalent
and the explicit legal issues behind it were muddy.
Software was on the shelves, to be sure, but software licensing wasn't
the clear thing that it is today. That "information wants to be free"
meme was already rampant, helping us all to rationalize not paying the
author of softwares which were for sale. The substantial seeds of
today's online art-sharing comes from that and a massive distrust of the
companies which distribute commercial art.
That distrust is wholly American as well. We've been teaching kids to
distrust authority figures for at least 40 years, and not to trust
authority a priori for maybe 200 years.
Rob
Rob Perkins
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SamusekTDS wrote:
> [ The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set. ]
>
> [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ]
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> [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
>
> Jms at B5 wrote:
>
>> The technical term for these people is deadbeats. The kind of guys
>> who come to
>> stay at your house for a weekend, end up staying for a month, eating
>> your food
>> without paying for it, using your car without sharing gas costs, and
>> get pissed
>> off when you ask that they share the burden.
>>
>> Me, I don't associate with guys like that.
>>
>> Your mileage may vary.
>>
>> jms
>
>
> Well, not trying to argue - but just follow-up "questions":
>
> 1) In Canada, most downloading is so far not-illegal, but "grey".
Not-illegal does NOT make it not-immoral, IMO.
> 2) There is a large chain of bookstores that encourages people to come
> and sit and read, by putting chairs out all through the store. And
> people do spend hours doing that.
Several chains, but at the end of the day, you either buy the book or
you can't have the art in the book. Chances are you'll buy it or years
from now you'll have money, and then you'll buy stuff from that store,
because you were already comfortable going there.
Those chairs are not a tacit invitation to steal books.
> 3) What about downloading vs. VCR use?
You paid for VCR/DVR recording by also taking up the commercials aired.
You didn't take commercials with your downloads.
> 4) What about reform of the current system? (ie: ratings, distribution,
> etc)
Good luck with that.
Rob
Paul Harper
wrote:
>Me, I don't associate with guys like that.
Best to avoid fan conventions then.
As an interesting experiment, ask the audience how many of them have
copies of all ten B5 blooper reels, then gauge how many of the half
the audience that *don't* put their hands up are lying.
Or next time you do a UK convention, ask how many people saw episodes
before they were transmitted over here.
So sorry Joe, but yes, you do associate with guys like that.
Paul (more Gandalf the Grey than Gandalf the White...)
Rob Perkins
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Steve Lamb wrote:
> On 2004-12-09, Laura Appelbaum <l-app...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>If it wasn't wrong, y'all wouldn't have to post "justifications" of your
>>actions that are composed of multiple paragraphs either.
>
>
> That reasoning would make the bill of rights "wrong" as they are
> justifications for sensible behavior in a civilized socity... or something.
> :P
>
The Bill of Rights is mercifully *short*. The legal interpretations
behind using the Bill of Rights to justify all kinds of things not in
the Bill of Right are what takes up the multiple paragraphs.
Rob
Amy Guskin
(in article <slrncrg82...@dmiyu.org>):
> On 2004-12-08, Jms at B5 <jms...@aol.com> wrote:
>> You mean, aside from the fact that it's massively illegal?
>
>
>> Let's say you're a big fan of Jonathan Carroll (as am I). You read all his
>> books. But instead of buying them, you know where there's a blind spot in
>> your local bookstore where the mirrors can't catch you, so you just go in,
>> grab his latest book, shove it in your bag, and leave.
>
> Bad example. This is theft of a material object which also contains the
> data under question. There is an defined loss because of the materials used.
> That loss does not occur in internet trading. But I'll get to that in a<<
I'm getting tired of this argument, which is usually proferred by people who
do not themselves create anything. You (and others) say that if you're not
stealing the actual, physical book (e.g. from the bookstore), then no loss
has occurred. By this logic, apparently in your mind only the bookseller's
participation in the income stream is valid. And maybe the printer/binder,
too. But there _is_ a loss when the data, sans actual paper, is stolen. The
person who stole it would have had to buy a book if they hadn't had an
opportunity to steal the data. Buying the book benefits the bookseller, the
printer/binder, the publisher, AND THE CREATOR.
Now you're going to say "that person wouldn't have bought the book anyway."
Well then, fine. If they weren't going to buy the book (movie/song/etc.)
anyway...then they SHOULDN'T HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF OWNING IT. Simple enough.
Amy
--
http://www.zongoftheweek.com
Free and legal downloads of fun, original songs
This week's zong: "What I Ate on my Christmas Vacation"
This week's on Kids' Zong: A Big Sack of Christmas Zongs
Rob Perkins
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Derek Balling wrote:
>>You mean, aside from the fact that it's massively illegal?
>
>
> Legality and morality are not equal. There are places in this country
> where it is illegal to marry someone whose levels of skin pigment are
> different from your own. There are crappy laws just as there are crappy
> things people do that are perfectly legal.
Right.
Who decides that?
And, what happens when we leave that decision to each individual?
Rob
Thunder v.2.0.0.4
companies are doing their best to get rid of "fair use" (i.e. being able
to have a copy of something I legally purchased and am NOT sharing with
anyone else). That's what DRM on music CDs helps eliminate and it's not
fair to the buyer.
t.k.
Matt Ion
> Matt Ion wrote:
>
>
>> They also want 0.8 cents per megabyte for removable flash-memory or
>> micro-drive memory cards - that means the 512MB CompactFlash card in
>> my digital camera would have been subject to an additional $4.10
>> levy... more money for Bryan and Celine so I can have storage for my
>> own personal photos. Just on the ASSUMPTION that that card MAY
>> SOMEDAY be used to playback pirated music...
>
>
> This seriously pisses me off because you're completely right. I want to
> back up my stories on to CD. They are *my* intellectual property but I
> have to pay some dick working for the media industry because he thinks
> I'm stealing songs/something! So, I should lose money off my own
> property for a perceived loss...?
> I mean sure people are going to steal music/whatever and burn it, but
> not every use of blank media is illegitimate. Furthermore, I've heard
> stories that the music and entertainment industries are experiencing
> major gains of late, downloads or no.
I've seen the extreme version of this: I used to work IT support at a
digital arts school, and I've seen more than a few students pissed off
at the fact they have to pay this "assumed piracy" levy on blank CDs and
DVDs that they're using to back up their own work and produce their own
demo reels. I know one guy who was almost unscrupulously honest - he
would NEVER have downloaded a song just on principle, even if it was
legal. After seening how much extra he had to pay of a pack of CDs he
bought to produce his demo reel, he determined that he may as well
download a few songs, since he was already paying for it anyway...
SamusekTDS
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Jms at B5 wrote:
>>3) What about downloading vs. VCR use?
>
> Again, apples/oranges. If you have it on a VCR, it's because it's been
> broadcast to you, and you have your copy, and the system is legal. When you
> digitize it and make multiple copies available, then you are no longer keeping
> a single record for your archives, you are becoming a distributer without a
> license.
>
>
>>4) What about reform of the current system? (ie: ratings, distribution, etc)
>
> Not only apples/oranges, we've gone out of the produce section
> entirely...different matter entirely.
>
> jms
Nonono... I just meant that I wanted to know your thoughts on those
subjects, as "related" topics - not as "justifications for downloading"
or anything.
The arguments, presented in a giant mishkabibble: VCRs have often been
grey as well, bootleg tapes passed around in trading circles, etc. If I
download a copy for my personal archive - what's the difference? If I
don't see the commercials because of TIVO or a simple VCR, then what's
the difference if the person I got it from has pre-cut them out? If I am
not a Nielsen person, how can what I do matter? Are the early adopters
not also creating positive buzz for the show, and on and on...
See, I have no quarrel about the unacceptability of it all from an
artist's perspective, just when the only solution is to hammer the
end-user. Instead of, or at the same time as "cracking down", I prefer
reform of the system to the point where people WOULDN'T do it, instead
of COULDN'T.
---
Sam.
Wendy of NJ
wrote:
There is a difference between a physical library and the Internet. The
difference is this:
Library: ONE PERSON AT A TIME can read a particular book.
Internet: THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE AT A TIME may download a particular file
nearly concurrently.
It's an order of magnitude thing. If libraries were able to
dissemenate each item in their collection to a potentially huge
audience, you bet that booksellers would be charging libraries monthly
royalties for each of the books in their collections, just as ASCAP,
BMI and SESAC charge radio stations, bars, stores and other venues for
the rights to broadcast music to many people simultaneously.
<snip of a lot of things>
I'm not sure this is the best place in this discussion for this
comment, but I'm writing here. this is in support of the "internet is
not free" argument that's been brought up elsewhere in this thread.
The cartoonist of User Friendly has this contract with the 'net
community, and I think it's germaine to this discussion in many ways.
I have his permission to post it here (Thanks, Illiad) with the
addition this link: http://www.userfriendly.org (The comic, BTW, is
very funny, and geek oriented, and there are a lot of B5 fans that
hang out there as well)
These words are not mine, but I think they bear reading. This is from
someone who VOLUNTARILY puts their work online...
begin quote
---
CONTRACT IMPLICIT: CREATORS ON THE WEB
This is a contract that I think has, in one form or another, been
implied since the first creator/artist placed his work on the 'Net for
all to see and enjoy. Now that it's written out, it isn't implicit any
longer. But it's still a "contract" that exists only as a list of
expectations, ones that cannot be legally enforced. I'm simply hoping
that everyone sees this contract as fair, and that you'll go along
with it because your conscience guides you in that direction. Kind of
an "ethical self-enforcement."
It is with such hopes that I will continue to adhere to my side of the
contract.
Note: Some of the points below are my own promises that need not apply
to other creators. It's a personal thing.
I WILL PROVIDE one cartoon a day, every day, 365 days a year (366 on
leap years).
I WILL ALWAYS be the author of the daily cartoon. I will not feature
guest cartoonists to fill in for an absence.
I WILL NOT use the daily cartoon as a promotion vehicle for
$CORPORATION. What goes in the daily cartoon is limited to the story I
wish to tell. Any products or services within the daily cartoon exist
solely for the sake of the story.
I UNDERSTAND that making a living from this is a privilege, not a
right.
I WILL NOT ever run pop-ups, pop-unders or anything that takes over
the browser.
I WILL STRIVE to only run ad banners that are relevant to the
audience.
I WILL NOT gate off the cartoon to paying members only. I understand
that not everyone has money to spend and that they can contribute in
ways other than with cash.
I WILL ALWAYS remain within the boundaries of ethical behaviour and
will let my conscience be my guide.
In return, I hope:
YOU WILL RESPECT my intellectual property and acknowledge my sole
right to determine how it will be used and distributed.
YOU UNDERSTAND that content is not actually "free"; someone has to put
their time, money and/or effort into creating and distributing it.
YOU WILL support myself and the other independent creators whose work
you enjoy through the purchase of memberships, visiting our
advertisers or even just by spreading the word and letting us know you
like what we do.
YOU WILL NOT use an ad blocker, particularly when you can turn the ads
off by buying a membership.
YOU WILL NOT consume content by web-scraping or any other unsanctioned
means that denies myself or any other primary content creator page
views and therefore ad impressions and therefore money to help keep
their efforts afloat.
YOU UNDERSTAND that you don't have a right to free content on the
'Net.
YOU WILL ALWAYS remain within the boundaries of ethical behaviour and
will let your conscience be your guide.
---
end quote
There are some very interesting points being made with this contract.
One, that content is not actually "free"
Two, that the creator is dependent upon revenues from either donations
(subscriptions) or advertising, and that trying to defeat the ads is
unethical
Three, that a given person does NOT have a right to free material on
the Internet.
to bring this back to the discussion at hand, downloading a program
that is broadcast "freely" prevents the broadcaster their "ad
impressions", if you will. If you want to watch the show for "free",
you have to sit through the advertising (so it's not really free,
either! You have 15 minutes in the hour to have ad people hawk their
wares to you). If you want to purchase an ad-free copy, you have the
DVD route to go.
If you want to see a show that isn't in current circulation, you have
to get on the owner's case to make it available, and hope that they do
so. They are under no obligation to do so, however. So sometimes, one
has to catch it the first time. Some art is ephemeral. Some
deliberately so, and some by chance.
-Wendy
Simo Aaltonen
> 1. The laws on media copyright were not authorised by the
> general public. They were got through Congress by a
> mixture of enormous bribes and con tricks. Most
> politicians thought they were industry only bills and
> did not bother reading them. If warned that they were
> handling proposed laws designed to send voters to
> jail Congressmen would have negotiated every clause
> and required a lot more proof.
I could pick any of the sentences above and base a reply on those, but I
suspect others will beat me to it, and also do it better than I could. Oh,
well, I'll take a gentle shot at it anyway:
A) Since when have US (or international) laws needed to be "authorised by
the general public"?
B) What's your source on the "enormous bribes and con tricks" thing?
C) Your estimate of not just one politician's ability, but those of every
one involved, is breathtakingly uncharitable.
D) "Warned" by whom? What "proof"?
> Hollywood will be punished for that cheat.
That would be the one monolithic Hollywood who planned this whole thing
and none of the people making their livelihoods there?
> Avoid jury trials against members of the audience,
> juries do not like cheats.
They like criminals and rip-off artists better?
> Could similar laws to the current ones have been negotiated
> with the general public? Probably but it would have taken
> several years.
Negotiated how?
> 2. There is a difference between downloads and unpaid
> downloads. PayPal and credit cards exists - use them.
You've lost me. How many places even offer how many SF (or other) series
up for legal, paid downloading? And if the place is illegal, do you
propose to just send money in the production company's general direction?
It's amazing how much dishonest justification floats around simply because
a wrong is widely practiced.
Simo Sakari Aaltonen
(simo...@cc.jyu.fi)
Zarggg
[ ... ]
> You mean, aside from the fact that it's massively illegal? I mean,
> to a certain extent, the task here is to show that it's immoral to
> steal a car because one might scrape the paint or affect the business
> of local repair shops after it's been cargo-shipped to some distant
> city.
>
> But okay, I'll bite.
>
[ see parent for full quote ]
>
> Your mileage may vary.
>
> jms
>
> (jms...@aol.com) (all message content (c) 2004 by synthetic worlds,
> ltd., permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine and
> don't send me story ideas)
Nice. Very nice. Would I be able to quote that on my weblog? I've sent
you an email about it as well, so feel free to respond here or there. :)
--
Zarggg
KeyID: 0x2FAAE151
<http://www.zarggg.net/blog>
See <http://www.zarggg.net/contact.html> for contact information.
Wesley Struebing
<sam...@yahoo.com> wrote:
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>
> [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ]
>
> [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
>
>Jms at B5 wrote:
>> The technical term for these people is deadbeats. The kind of guys who come to
>> stay at your house for a weekend, end up staying for a month, eating your food
>> without paying for it, using your car without sharing gas costs, and get pissed
>> off when you ask that they share the burden.
>>
>> Me, I don't associate with guys like that.
>>
>> Your mileage may vary.
>>
>> jms
>
>Well, not trying to argue - but just follow-up "questions":
>
>1) In Canada, most downloading is so far not-illegal, but "grey".
>
>2) There is a large chain of bookstores that encourages people to come
>and sit and read, by putting chairs out all through the store. And
>people do spend hours doing that.
Yeah, we have bookstores like that, here, too - the "Tattered Cover."
Turns out it makse for them anyway, good business sense. They've
found that the vast majority of those people who avail themselves of
the privilege wind up buying the book (whatever) anyway.
>
(now, back to our regularly scheduled mayhem...)
--
Wes Struebing
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America,
and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples,
promising liberty and justice for all.
Craig M. Bobchin
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In article <20041209033744...@mb-m14.aol.com>, jmsatb5
@aol.com says...
> >3) What about downloading vs. VCR use?
>
> Again, apples/oranges. If you have it on a VCR, it's because it's been
> broadcast to you, and you have your copy, and the system is legal. When you
> digitize it and make multiple copies available, then you are no longer keeping
> a single record for your archives, you are becoming a distributer without a
> license.
>
>
Okay Joe, how about this scenario?
I record a sow on my PVR built into my PC because I wasnt home at the
time to watch it. I then burn this to DVD so I can take it on a trip
with me. I watch it and then give the disc to a friend to watch. That
would be fine with your reasoning above.
So if I watch it and thenmake it available for downloading its not ok?
The only difference is the medium used for transferring a legally
broadcast and recorded show. VCR/disc vs. wire/fiber optic cable. Sorry
that argument don't scan.
Now movies that are still in the theater or on DVD and have not been
broadcast I can agree with you on.
But TV shows that have been downloaded within a few days of broadcast uh
uh, that is just another form of videotaping and sharing a tape.
Chris Patterson
"Thunder v.2.0.0.4" <dece...@shaw.ca> wrote:
> One problem I have with this whole matter is that entertainment
> companies are doing their best to get rid of "fair use" (i.e. being able
> to have a copy of something I legally purchased and am NOT sharing with
> anyone else). That's what DRM on music CDs helps eliminate and it's not
> fair to the buyer.
While I come down whole-heartedly on Joe and Amy's side in the larger
discussion of copyright (I have nothing on my iPod that I didn't rip
from CDs I own or purchase from the iTMS), I do find the increasing
limitations on "fair use" to be annoying. Case in point: I was asked by
our pastor to put together a sequence of video clips from popular movies
to drive home a point to our high school youth group this weekend. Our
church has complete legal permission to do so via the CVLI (see
http://www.cvli.org/), which we paid for. I could have made a crude tape
copy of the clips I needed, but I just got a new PowerBook and wanted to
try my hand at building it all in iMovie and iDVD. So I went down to
Blockbuster and rented the list of movies, which you can only find in
DVD format most places these days. Well, you can see where this is
heading -- I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get a clean copy
of the snips of video I wanted onto my DVD because of DRM, Macrovision,
etc. even though our church has *already paid* for the right to use them.
--
=====================================================================
Chris Patterson chrispatterson.at.comcast.dot.net
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are
always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
-- Bertrand Russell
=====================================================================
Steven Grimm
will probably be long, but I hope it's interesting or at least
provocative. I have been thinking about these issues for the last 25
years. This isn't aimed at Joe specifically, but is more a general
airing of my views on the subject.
First of all, I will say that I have a stake in the idea of intellectual
property. My main source of income is technical consulting, and part of
the value I bring to a client is the library of code I've created over
the years, work they can't easily get anywhere else. And as the creator
of a web site some of you may have visited, I've seen my work copied
without permission on several occasions and haven't been pleased about
it. I say that so you'll believe the following claim: I am not in favor
of unfettered copying of every possible thing that can be copied.
Eliminating the concept of copyright entirely is not in my best interest
and it's not in society's best interest. I think the framers of the U.S.
Constitution were absolutely correct to include the clause that allows
copyrights and patents.
With that out of the way, I nonetheless believe that a lot of the
entertainment industry's arguments against filesharing ring completely
hollow. One of those arguments is exactly the one JMS brought up:
equating the act of copyright infringement with the act of physical theft.
They're different, in fact nearly unrelated, and the difference is so
completely fundamental as to render the analogy useless bordering on
willfully deceptive. (Fighting words, but read on and you'll see why I
think they're justified.)
Say I walk into the bookstore in question and buy the book. I hand over
my money, they give me a receipt, the book is now in my hands. So far so
good. Now, say a half-hour earlier, JMS's book thief had come into the
store and stolen the book. I arrive to buy it, and uh oh! The store
doesn't have it! They get no money from me and I leave empty-handed.
But what if the book thief had instead brought in his camera phone,
snapped a bunch of photos, and walked out with the content of the book,
but not the physical item? Now I arrive to buy the book. I hand over my
money, they give me a receipt, the book is now in my hands. And in some
sense it is also in the hands of the "thief." Clearly, what that person
did in these two cases is not even remotely the same thing. In one case
the store had a book to sell to me, and in the other they didn't.
Here is the uncomfortable thing for people who make a living creating
ideas, me included: In economic terms, wealth has been created by the
very act of making the copy. Where before there was my money and the
book, now there is my money, the book, and the copy of the book. That
much, I believe, is very difficult to refute.
Things get hairier, though, when you ask, "If the thief hadn't been able
to steal the book or make a copy, would he have bought the book
instead?" The ubiquitous answer of every major publisher of anything,
from software to music to movies to books, is, "Yes, of course!" You
don't have to swing a cat very far before it smacks into a dire warning
from some content industry group or another complaining about the
billions of dollars in revenue lost every year due to piracy. That they
manage to put out such reports while simultaneously racking up record
profits is a testament to their high tolerance for cognitive dissonance,
if nothing else.
It is absolutely correct that publishers do lose sales to piracy. No
honest person would dispute that. But if you look at how they come up
with their numbers, without fail you will find that they multiply the
estimated number of pirated copies by the retail (or sometimes
wholesale) price of the legitimate copies in a blatant attempt to trick
their audience, usually legislators, into thinking the situation is much
worse than it is. Personally, I believe they have to do that because
they wouldn't have a very convincing case if they told anyone their
*real* losses.
Do you know any seven-year-old girls with PCs? A seven-year-old with a
cable modem in the house can download tens of thousands of dollars worth
of pirated software, movies, and music over the course of a year. If you
follow the publishers' logic, this dastardly little girl has done all
that simply to avoid paying the megabucks she would otherwise have spent
to fill up her hard disk.
Do you know many seven-year-olds with PCs and tens of thousands of
dollars of spending money? (If you do, can I move into your
neighborhood, please?) If you buy the "downloads = lost sales" argument,
you need to be prepared to say exactly who has been financially harmed
when a seven-year-old downloads a $10,000 3-D animation package to check
it out. If they'd successfully prevented the pirate download, the
publisher would have had exactly the same amount of revenue from that
user: zero. Even if she worked her paper route nonstop 24 hours a day,
she wouldn't have had that much money to spend. This is not a paradox
since copying creates wealth, but it is a big problem for those who
can't acknowledge that idea.
If your economic thinking is centered around tangible things, you have
no basis from which to make rational arguments about copyright
infringement, because by its very nature, an idea is not scarce. Its
supply is infinite, and, in the case of digitally-embodied ideas, its
marginal production cost is nearly zero. Classical, supply-and-demand
economics theories don't do much to address an economy of zero-cost,
infinite-supply, high-value items, simply because until the last few
decades, there were no real-world examples to work with.
The economics of physical things are all about scarcity. I have this
plot of land, which means you have to live somewhere else. You have the
last surviving signed first edition of "Gulliver's Travels," which means
I have to settle for a reprint. Now how about: I have the recipe for
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which means you have to eat
something else. If that sounds ridiculous to you, think about why it's
different than the previous two examples and you'll see why, if you
count embodiments of ideas as wealth (the whole basis of the concept of
intellectual property), copying is a wealth-creating act. The only thing
left to argue over is who gets the benefit of that newly-created wealth.
The issue is not nearly as cut and dried as, "Copying is taking food
from the artists' mouths." And in fact, it's not even "artists vs.
everyone else" -- if you go to the Pew Charitable Trusts' "Internet and
American Life" website, you'll see a study they just released that says
fully two-thirds of musicians surveyed say filesharing poses little or
no threat.
Now to the legalities. Since I'm familiar with the USA and not with
other countries' legal systems, I will quote the US Constitution, which
says Congress has the power...
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for
limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their
respective Writings and Discoveries
It is in society's best interest to refrain from simply copying
everything without restriction. By agreeing not to copy things for a
limited time, in exchange society gets the fruit of the authors' and
inventors' labors. After the limited time, those works fall into the
public domain and society is free to take full advantage of the unique
economics of ideas -- and further, to build on those newly freed ideas
to create brand-new ones that would otherwise be impossible or
impractical. Science and useful Arts thus make Progress.
And make no mistake: society's best interest, not rewarding authors, is
the goal here, hence "To promote the Progress of Science and useful
Arts." *That* is what Congress has the power to do. The "securing for
limited times" part is simply the means by which they are allowed to do
it, not the power itself.
Why is that important? Because the more the BSA and the MPAA and the
RIAA push for longer and longer copyright terms, the more they push for
the DMCA and the INDUCE Act and other legal copy-control regimes, the
closer we get to the means not only justifying the end, but in fact
*becoming* the end. Which is clearly not the intent of the fundamental
law of the land.
Imagine "West Side Story" ever being made in a world where the
Shakespeare estate still owned the copyright on "Romeo and Juliet" and
was aggressive about shutting out derivative works. (Google "The Wind
Done Gone" if you think that's unlikely.) Or a world where my distant
relatives still held the copyrights on all their fairy tales and didn't
much care for animation, so sorry Disney, no "Snow White" or
"Cinderella" for you. Ironically, that's the world the MPAA is fighting
tooth and nail to create. Does that promote the Progress of Science and
useful Arts?
The Constitution's intellectual-property clause is about striking a
balance between society's ability to copy ideas for free and creators'
incentive to create new ideas for everyone to copy. Figuring out the
ideal terms of that balance is not trivial. But that it's a balance is
critical -- if creators don't promote the Progress of Science and useful
Arts, society has no incentive, nor indeed any obligation, to grant the
exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. Each side
has a vested interest in making sure the other's goals are at least
somewhat satisfied. In other words, a compromise.
And that's the problem right now. If today's balance of copyright
interests were a see-saw, it would be pointing nearly straight up in the
air, with society scrambling madly to keep from falling off completely.
Copyright terms get extended every time the first Mickey Mouse short is
about to become public domain, and no work published after October 27,
1923 may be built upon without the owner's permission. It is punishable
in a court of law to even *talk* about how to copy a DVD unless you
happen to be a college professor who can stir up lots of bad publicity.
(Google "Edward Felten DMCA" if you think I'm exaggerating.) There is no
organized, powerful public-interest lobby to go to Congress and
challenge the publishers' piracy numbers, so even an honest Congressman
who isn't a specialist in the area will believe there's a problem that
needs to be fixed with stricter laws. (Google "induce act" if you think
they aren't working on it.)
It's not just here, either. Earlier this year in Ireland, James Joyce's
grandson was able to mount a legal challenge to stop an exhibition of
his grandfather's original manuscripts, thanks to his
two-generations-removed inherited copyright. Only an explicit,
narrowly-targeted act of the Irish Parliament allowed the exhibition to
go on.
Against that series of slaps in the face of the public interest, is it
any wonder people don't feel any particular moral compunction about
ignoring the laws completely and copying whatever they like? The bargain
has been smashed to pieces already, and the other side is the one
holding the hammer.
Now, having said all that... The studios could fix this problem
trivially and make more money than ever before. One-step process: Sell
decent-quality downloads of the episodes over the web within a short
period of the initial broadcast. That they don't just do it is, I have
to admit, completely incomprehensible to me. Contrary to the propaganda,
the self-justifying gimme mentality is not all that strong. If it were,
Apple and RealNetworks would not be selling millions of music tracks
over the Internet, since every last one of those songs is available for
free if you're willing to infringe the copyright. Given a choice they
consider reasonable, people will do the right thing. But given a choice
between violating an unreasonable set of laws and being inconvenienced,
many people will choose the former. That's how it's always been (raise
your hand if you've never driven 56MPH in a 55MPH zone) and the sooner
the movie industry comes to terms with that, the sooner they can stop
complaining about the VCR killing Hollywood and get on with marketing
their next direct-to-video sequel. To name one example at random.
To circle back around to the original topic, I am totally digging
"Battlestar Galactica." I will watch it again when Sci-Fi airs it and
the picture quality is better. I plan to buy the DVD set, as I have
bought the DVD sets of other shows such as "Firefly" and "Alias" (and
B5, of course!) which I could have instead downloaded for free. They
will get the same amount of money from me, and the same eyeball time for
their advertisers, whether or not I see the episodes before January.
If you're still uneasy about that, I'll leave you with three questions.
Is it immoral for an American to download those episodes and watch them
before January? Is it immoral for the same person to visit a friend in
London and watch them on tape there? If your answers to those two
questions aren't the same, why is there a difference?
Thanks for hearing me out -- I hope I've given at least a few people
something new to think about.
-Steven Grimm
Jo'Asia
> So - Do I feel guilty about downloading the Rangers TV movie which is
> not as far as I know available anywhere to buy?
http://www.merlin.com.pl/frontend/towar/322942 :)
Jo'Asia
--
__.-=-. -< Joanna Slupek >----------------------< http://esensja.pl/ >-
--<()> -< joasia @ hell . pl >------< http://bujold.fantastyka.net/ >-
.__.'| -< Better a mutie than a moron!
{Lord Mark Pierre Vorkosigan} >-
Travers Naran
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I agree entirely with the stealing food from the mouths of artists, I
do think most artists' and studios' attitude is throwing out the baby
with the bathwater. Specifically this scenario:
Person A is a fan of the show, but for various factors, cannot legally
get the show in their region. Person B is a fan of the show, but does
not want to pay HBO or his cable company $120 for the 3 months it takes
to watch 8 hours of Sopranos. Person C is just a fat free loader,
let's call him the Straw Man. He has the money, watches a lot of HBO
for free by downloading episodes from the Internet. I will leave him
out of this discussion because you just effectively explained why he
deserves nothing but the swift kick to the arse.
Person A is forced to download their show because no station in their
market will bother airing. Person A *would* pay if there was someone
willing to sell her the episodes, but the feeling from the studio &
networks is this Person A's demand can be made to wait 8 months to 5
years.
Person B just wants a better deal. If he could watch Sopranos for say
$5 per hour, he would (hey, wasn't there a pay-per-view experiment with
the Sopranos this season? Why yes), but the view from The Powers That
Be is that Person B should be stiffed and that he has no right to
demand a lower price (note I said right to DEMAND, not right to it).
So what I hear from Hollywood et al is in order to make sure Person C
can never, ever, EVER freeload, we will ignore Person's A & B demand
despite the fact that, with a little effort of finding ways to make
Internet downloading, etc. legal, A&B could become paying customers.
Real life examples of satisfying person's A & B while making money for
the artist:
Person A = simultaneous release of movies across all markets. Still
expensive, but there are companies & studios trying their best to do
this as a way of combating piracy in foreign markets (most of whom will
gladly pay Hollywood their bucks instead of Bob the Pirate down the
street)
Person B = iTunes. 'Nuff said.
Maybe instead of always bringing up Person C and trashing the entire
technology & movement by identifying all participants as Person C, you
might want to figure out how one can use the technology to get money
that was being LOST from Persons A & B so that way A & B get what they
want, artists get paid from a bigger pie, etc.
But, I might add, that what makes it VERY hard to do this is something
that affects JMS directly: Hollywood accounting. If there was a fairer
way of divying up the royalties, there'd be more demand from artists to
support this model.
krueg...@hotmail.com
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I have been looking for years for "Blake's 7" on VHS or DVD Region 1.
Not that I could download it illegally, but these conversations always
make me ask:
when something is unavailable, is it less horrible to download it?
I suspect the answer is: yes. Demand = marketability and without
demand the item will never be made marketable.
The upcoming revival of Dr. Who is going to kill me. *cries*
I live in the U.S.A.
Mike Ross
<sou...@moltenimage.com> wrote:
>Jms at B5 wrote:
>
>> The technical term for these people is deadbeats. The kind of guys who come to
>> stay at your house for a weekend, end up staying for a month, eating your food
>> without paying for it, using your car without sharing gas costs, and get pissed
>> off when you ask that they share the burden.
Agreed.
>Instead of recognizing the potential from the very start and working to
>update ancient copyright laws and put the technology to work FOR them in
>an intelligent manner, we have what amounts to a bunch of
>stuck-in-the-60s fat cats whose only recourse for any slight is to throw
>lawyers at it.
Ding!
>Second mistake they made was to immediately slap Napster down and turn
>it into a David-vs.-Goliath battle: these kinds of things only raise the
>hackles of your average hacker/net-freedom-fighter/etc. and make them
>dig in deeper.
Ding!
>Dropping lawsuits on the proverbial grandmothers and 12-year-olds served
>them little good but to make them look like big-buck mafia thugs; yes,
>they were downloading illegally, but this is NOT a good way to turn
>public opinion to your way of thinking. All people see is the
>cigar-chomping three-piece-suited music-biz pig and not the artists that
>are being the most affected; the industry looks like a bad guy instead
>of the injured party.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
<snip a bunch of highly relevant stuff about legalised larceny in
Canada>
Joe & Matt are both right. Joe is writing about what he knows -
writing and getting paid for it, I accept what he says and agree with
it. I'm not defending dowloading. Or, more accurately, freeloading.
The problem is you can't pay the folks that deserve it without also
paying off the slimiest lawyers and lobbyists in the Orion Arm.
The media companies own politicians in fee simple. I don't have a
problem with the ownership of creative works (although anyone who
thinks Disney will *ever* let the copyright run out on M. Mouse is
deluded). It's the control freakery & Luddites that gall me. Goes back
to Betamax, probably further back still. DMCA. The super-DMCAs they're
pushing through the states. ReplayTV - when the high heid yin of the
MPAA says 'skipping commercials is theft', I know we're in the realm
of newspeak. Flags in HDTV broadcasts which can prevent you exercising
your right (as determined by the SC) to record. DVD region coding, ye
gods and little fishes! The whole control freakery of DVDs which led
to DECSS, suppression of DECSS, and the persecution of 'DVD Jon'.
Sending corporate lawyers after a granny (they probably earn more in a
week than she does in a year) is the icing on the cake. It doesn't
just make them *look* like mafia thugs. Jesus H. Christ - Good King
Macbeth had better PR than these guys, and they're supposed to be in
the media business! Heinlein said it best:
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this
country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a
profit out of the public for a number of years, the government
and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such
profit in the future, even in the face of changing
circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange
doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither
individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court
and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for
their private benefit." - RAH, 'Life Line'
Yes, downloading is illegal. But could the media companies *possibly*
have done anything to make it more attractive?
Mike
--
http://www.corestore.org
"All I know is that I'm being sued for unfair business practices by Microsoft. Hello pot? It's kettle on line two" -
Michael Robertson
Erik
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I would love to see an iTunes-style store for visual media. I'd be
broke, but it would be great. There have been dozens of shows I've
watched that I would have gladly paid immediately for a full-screen
copy for my laptop. Even then, I'd still buy the DVDs to get the
commentaries (and because I prefer stuff on physical media).
Kerr
"Jms at B5" <jms...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20041207205024...@mb-m11.aol.com...
> You mean, aside from the fact that it's massively illegal? I mean, to a
> certain extent, the task here is to show that it's immoral to steal a car
> because one might scrape the paint or affect the business of local repair
> shops
> after it's been cargo-shipped to some distant city.
How about the problem of the regional releases on DVD? For instance,
recently the first season of Blake's 7 has been released on DVD in Europe.
So far, there's absolutely no indication it will be released in the US. I
can download a rip of those DVDs that I can play on my computer and even
burn to a DVD I can play on my TV. How wrong is this? I'd absolutely
purchase the set if it was offered, but because of some ridiculous concept
of Regional DVDs, you can't get many places to even ship from one region to
another, even if you were to go out and find some regionless DVD player.
Me, I'd download the Blakes 7 DVDs in an instant and burn my own. If the
studios won't take my money after I beg them to take it, I'm going to get it
on DVD for use until they finally decide to release it in the region. Hell,
that may even push their movement towards getting a release here.
Hal Vaughan
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Stuart Lamble wrote:
> On 2004-12-09, SamusekTDS <sam...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> [snippage]
>> 2) There is a large chain of bookstores that encourages people to come
>> and sit and read, by putting chairs out all through the store. And
>> people do spend hours doing that.
>
> I was going to post a long comment on this subject, but I think the
> essence of what I want to say is summed up best by Eric Flint. Have a
> look at http://www.baen.com/library/ and consider a similar argument
> applied to audiovisual material. It comes down to giving people a chance
> to sample something before they fork out a significant sum of money on
> it. Most people -- myself included -- wouldn't spend $400 on five
> seasons of TV without being reasonably sure that they'll enjoy that
> purchase. Downloading is one way of doing this (or would be if per
> gigabyte charges in Australia weren't so ridiculously high...); putting
> chairs out is another (in the case of books, anyway.)
That's an excuse, for those who are too cowardly to admit to what they are
doing.Whywouldsomeonebespending$400onaTVshowiftheyhadn'tseen
it, or at least enough episodes to know they like it?Ihaveyettosee
any show packaged so you had to buy the whole series (unless it's a short
series, like on BBC, sometimes).ThereareafewshowsI'veneverseen,
but would like to get on DVD (Secret Agent Man, Buffy to name 2).I'mnot
about to buy more than a season of them to see what they're like.I've
also heard about them from friends, so I have an idea of what to expect.
> Some people will freeload, yes. But in the case of the bookstores,
> they're expecting that enough won't that they'll get more sales by
> people checking out books that they're a little unsure of, getting
> hooked, and then buying.
So how many people do you see who sit down and read an entire book?I
confess that, while starting my business, I often had to go to Borders and
look up technical points in programming language books, then read sections
until I knew them.Atthatpoint,Icouldnotaffordthebook.Butmost
of those books are now on my shelves, in part because I believe in fair
play and paying for what I use, but also because if they were good enough
for me to learn one or two things from them, they were usually good enough
to provide frequent reference once I bought them.
Hal
Rick
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Your argument is flawed. If you loan a book, videotape, DVD or any
other such physical media to another, it can only be
read/viewed/listened to by a small number of people at a time. When
something is downloaded, millions of people can read/view/ or listen to
it.
Similarly, you may have purchased a B5 book from a used bookstore, but
that was _after_ someone else purchased it new somewhere else. And
again, buying a single copy of a book used is different from making
potentially millions of copies available online. After all, if someone
were to put that book online, making it available to one and all, how
many fewer physical copies do you suppose would have sold in the stores
or through online sites like Amazon?
The statement about your wife and parents not paying to read and watch
these items you bought is a straw man argument with no basis in
reality. Loaning an item that has already been paid for to another is
_in no way_ comparable to stealing the intellectual property of another
and making it available to potentially millions, who _also_ aren't
paying anything for it.
Could the system be improved? Sure. I think if something were set up
where people could _temporarily_ download a sample of a book or TV show
(or whatever) to their computer in a read/view only format that
couldn't be shared with others, it'd let them get a preview, and help
them decide if they want to buy the actual product. But by no means
should it ever be legal for people to download entire books, movies,
etc.-- without paying-- and then distribute them to people who also
don't pay.
That, by the way, is why it's legal to tape a show or movie with your
VCR. You only have the one copy, for your personal use. As JMS said,
however, the action become illegal when you start copying the tapes and
distributing them to others.
Rick
Steve Lamb wrote:
(SNIP)
> I purchased all 5 seasons of Babylon 5 and watched them with my
wife who
> did not pay for the priveledge.
>
> I lent Season 1 of Babylon 5 to my parents so they may view it
without
> paying for the privledge.
>
> I bought _Babylon 5: Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant_ from a
used book
> store from which no royalties are derived.
>
> I allowed, no... encouraged my wife to read the Technomage
series, the
> Centauri Prime series and the Psi Corps series of babylon 5 books
without
> charging for it or passing on your due compensation.
>
> I lent out several of my Babylon 5 books to coworkers without
charing for
> it or passing on your due compensation.
>
> If you feel that these are not crimes against you then please,
enlighten
> me, on how they are any different than any other form where the art
which is
> separate from the medium that carres it is transferred from one
person to
> another?
>
> --
> Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink,
I'm your
> PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard
of souls.
>
-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------
Paul Harper
<rrpe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Not-illegal does NOT make it not-immoral, IMO.
There is no connection between the two. Same as illegal does NOT make
it immoral either.
Paul.
Jms at B5
>general public.
>Could similar laws to the current ones have been negotiated
>with the general public?
Maybe I missed something, but the last I heard, no laws are"negotiated" with
the general public, and the general public does not "authorize" laws. The
courts legitimize or authorize, and congress negotiates.
Unless it's a ballot proposition, and there have been very few of those
overall...something like 90% of all the laws on the books are the result of
either legislative bodies or precedent set in courts.
If that's the distinction, it's a false one.
Dave Hayslett
news:081220041853320937%dr...@megacity.org:
....
>> Let's say you're a big fan of Jonathan Carroll (as am I). You read all
>> his books. But instead of buying them, you know where there's a blind
>> spot in your
>> local bookstore where the mirrors can't catch you, so you just go in,
>> grab his latest book, shove it in your bag, and leave. Or, conversely,
>> you borrow a copy from the library, go to the office where you work and
>> can use the copy machine for free, photocopy the entire book and keep
>> it.
>>
>> You CAN do it, sure. But does that make it right?
>
> No, because you've deprived the store of that *physical property*. It's
> no longer there for them to make money on.
>
> With someone downloading something, there is no "physical loss".
Still doesn't wash. People don't buy books for the paper and covers. That
just happens to be the means of conveying the story (information) that is
actually of interest. That information isn't lost when somebody buys a
book.
Just 'cause the delivery method is different for downloading doesn't make
it any less wrong to take information for which you haven't paid (or aren't
otherwise actually entitled).
--
Dave
There are three kinds of people in the world - those who can count, and
those who can't.
Jms at B5
No, not always. But my point, to which you respond, is that it's illegal. If
you want to argue morality, that's later down in the message. (Actually, there
are values, mores and laws...the former two eventually morphing into the third.
Just for any sociology students kicking around.)
>You *say* you don't want to indulge in the metaphor, but you then
>proceed to use the typical horribly flawed metaphor.
> You CAN do it, sure. But does that make it right?
>
>No, because you've deprived the store of that *physical property*. It's
>no longer there for them to make money on.
>
>With someone downloading something, there is no "physical loss".
>
Is the matter physical loss or financial loss? For the writer, there is sure
as heck a physical loss in one fewer check that arrives. And I would point out
that one of the two models I used did NOT result in physical loss, which takes
out your "horribly flawed" argument on the face of it. Copying a book and
returning it does not remove the physical book...but most people who think
nothing of downloading a movie get a serious case of the ooks when copying a
whole book.
So if you were saying the metaphor was false because it relied on physicality,
you're wrong on both relevant cases.
>But... wait... at the moment, that individual isn't getting *anything*
>for US-based individuals. It's only treading on the *possibility* of
>residuals.
Not correct. I don't even quite know what you're trying to say here. Each
time an episode runs, the people who made it get a royalty. So your point here
doesn't parse.
>People who are so fanatic as to spend four hours downloading an
>online version of a TV episode are also likely to be watching it again
>anyway when it airs
Please show your work here. Do you have any figures at all to back this up, or
are you just pulling this out of your backside? Because I've seen plenty of
people who've said, on boards, that they watched a given episode of Jeremiah on
download, and didn't watch it on broadcast. That is anecdotal, yes, but so is
yours...please back it up or we'll have to dismiss this one.
>People who aren't that fanatic -- people who download it, watch
>it, and then could care less about the actual television airing --
>probably weren't going to watch it past the first run anyway.
And thus they are irrelvant to the discussion.
>This is
>important because the first-run of the show is pretty much a sure
>thing.
No, it's not. Where do you get this stuff? Yes, it's a sure thing to
BROADCAST, sure, but any FUTURE airings or seasons are affected by ratings, and
ratings can be diminished if lots of people have already seen it on the nets.
Case in point...I know that a lot of British fans didn't watch Jeremiah when it
got there because they'd seen the downloads. (I know, I saw the discussions.)
So now we have to parse between the original US broadcast and all the rest of
the world.
>Now, any future airings (and thus, future
>residuals) are going to be based upon the network's belief that there
>will be repeat viewers. But those people who stole it who "never
>watched it the first time" were never going to be a contributor to the
>residuals anyway.
You're simply not making any sense. Their "belief that there will be repeat
viewers" is based on the NUMBER OF VIEWERS WHO TUNED IN. If the net has cut
into that, then guess what, their computations are not going to be very
positive.
>In other words, the residuals argument is a red herring.
No, it's not...if only because you are deliberately confining your argument to
the first broadcast of a given show, not the rest of the time it's on the air.
You can't support the rest of your argument, so you try to limit it to the
first broadcast. Residuals specifically refer to subsequent broadcasts.
>(a) people who are
>going to keep watching it whenever you air it because they're uberfans,
The only thing wrong with this is that it ain't so, and is unsupported by you
or anyone else.
>Thus, downloaders have *zero* effect on residuals.
Sorry, you can use "thus" all you want, but you haven't proven anything. All
you're doing is throwing a lot of verbiage to defend your right to take
anything you want to take, whenever you want to take it.
How is what you are doing, or defending, any different than going into a
library, borrowing a book, making a bunch of copies of the book for your
friends, and giving it away free? It isn't. Not in the smallest regard.
Let me be straight: IT'S NOT YOURS. Okay? Are we clear on this? The book is
not yours to duplicate for others because you can hold one copy in your hand
and photocopy it. It's not your RIGHT to do so. You are NOT a publisher, you
are NOT a distributer. You can have what's yours, but you can NOT go around
making copies for other people or uploading it.
You mention morality...yeah, we all have competing moralities...but from my
moral persepctive, as well as the law, it's wrong, pal. Pure and simple. You
can dance around it all you want, but that's the core of it. It's wrong, and
it's illegal, and it's theft.
Period.
>Then there's the DVD argument, the people who dupe the crap out of
>DVDs. These fall into a couple categories as well:
>
>o People who dupe everything they can just to dupe everything they can.
>
> Any studio who believes that the people who have DVD-R collections
>with 10,000 movies on them were *really really* going to actually PAY
>FOR 10,000 discs need to have their heads examined. This is money the
>studios *weren't going to see anyway*.
>
We're not talking about individuals duping 10,000 copies...we're talking about
individuals who digitize movies and TV eps and put them ON THE NET for 10,000
people to individually download. If you're going to keep changing the
parameters of the discussion to make your case easier, we can't really have a
conversation, now can we?
>But downloading the show *isn't* actually stealing. As shown above, it
>isn't taking a penny from their pockets.
>
You have NOT s hown this, sorry. And it IS stealing. You don't want to THINK
of it as stealing because that would mean thinking of yourself as a thief, and
you don't like that...people don't like to be told when they're being bad, but
you can use all the soft language you want, it doesn't make it any less theft.
>On the flip side of course, we have the studios, the guys who want to
>tell me that if I want to watch the latest episode of Lost, which they
>aired on TV for free, on my laptop while travelling across the country,
>I've got to subject myself to three different levels of DRM to make
>them happy.
So it's okay to steal if it's from a big company? Is that your moral position?
And if you're talking about one ep which you digitized for your own purposes,
not for uploading, then again you're changing subjects to cloud the argument.
>For a product that they gave away for free over unencrypted and
>unprotected airwaves.
>
Yeah, she was wearing a short skirt, she deserved what she got.
>I think I speak for many people when I say that's a load of shite.
>First, you feel the need to fall back on the ever-flawed "consumption
>metaphor", where your "deadbeat" consumes things which then prevent
>their consumption by others.
What a narrow definition you have of theft..and again, you haven't shown it's
shite, or disproven the point. When you cut into something that puts residuals
in the hands of artists, sorry,b ut that's a physical harm.
>Second, in many cases, these are people who *want* to give money to the
>rightsholders. Who *want* to be viewing the program via "approved"
>methods. But the rightsholders do stupid things, like say "well, we'll
>only let people in North America view our content."
Stupid. Really? Studio A has the RIGHTS for North America ONLY. So they make
a deal with a foreign distributer, sooner or later. The foreign distributer
then -- wait for it -- pays the studio money which GOES TO THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE
THE SHOW. That's the way the system WORKS. It's not a "stupid thing," it's
each company having their own bite of the market.
>If this was about "getting the rightsholders paid their due share" the
>rightsholders would be bending over so far backwards that they could
>kiss their ankles trying to get the data out there everywhere in
>gazillions of formats, charging for all of them, and acknowledging that
>the few remaining people who weren't willing to pay were people they
>weren't going to get money from anyway because they're the type of
>people who just don't pay for things.
But they can't because there's competing markets. The studios have as many
arms in as many countries as they can, and where they have arms, they
distribute, which defeats your point. Where they DON'T have arms or deals they
CAN'T distribute. It's not like they come in offshore with pirate masks saying
"Arr, beger, here's our shows, matey." They need to have someone in that other
country who will distribute it, or it can't be shown.
What part of that baffles you?
But the thing of it is...and this is the part that gets me...all your arguments
are very philsophical and self-congratulatory, but leaving aside entirely the
issue of legality (which is one hell of a lot to leave aside), and morality
(ditto), and physicality....
THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE THESE SHOWS, the people like those on Galactica who started
this conversation, people like me and others, the people you say you respect,
HAVE ASKED YOU TO STOP DOING IT...have been pleading with you, don't do
it...don't you understand that you are hurting the field, hurting jobs...this
isn't theoretical, this is the real, honest to god people who MAKE WHAT YOU SAY
YOU LIKE, asking you to PLEASE not do this.
And your message back to them is: fuck off, I do what I want.
Nice. Real nice.
Charles Edmondson
for the US. It seems that the PTB have decided that going after the end
users strategy has not worked well enough, so they are now targeting the
'enablers'!
From what I was reading of the language involved, they want to make
anyone that produces software or hardware CAPABLE of being used for
illicit file copying, or that ENCOURAGES file copying liable for that
potential copying.
Now, this is a big, big step, because of the implications. First, it
outlaws VCRs and DVD recorders, since they ENCOURAGE you to store IP
content, and to copy that content.
Next it outlaws personal computers, because every PC manufacturer will
be liable for any illicit file copying done by the PCs they manufacture,
especially if they include a CD or DVD burner!
Finally, Microsoft is in big, big, trouble! After all, their software
actually enables all this file copying and distribution, even advertizes
it! And, they have the deep pockets that tort happy shark.. I mean
lawyers will just love!
--
Charlie
--
Edmondson Engineering
Unique Solutions to Unusual Problems
Charles Edmondson
Steve Lamb wrote:
>
> Borrow from a library - download from the internet. The net result to
> you, the author, is the same. You make money. That is fact that has been
> verified by Eric Flint. See this URL: <http://www.baen.com/library/>. Baen
> has distributed 5 CDs worth of books in multiple formats and they have
> increased sales because of it. They enourage people to share those books far
> and wide. They don't restrict it to "you may share this CD". No, free,
> unlimited copying with the only restriction being noone can profit from it.
>
I can definitely comment on this! A few year back, I happened on to the
Free Library at Baen.com. Like Project Guttenburg, it has a large
number of books available for free download, but in this case, it is ALL
SCIENCE FICTION! WOW!
So, I started looking through it. Because of books I first read there I
have purchased:
The Honor Harrington series (or gotten it through my local library)
the Ring of Fire series
the Belisaurius series
Plus numerous other titles form authors I would probably never had read.
I can't blame my Bujold collection on them, though. That was from Analog...
So, if WB were to put all of say, Season 1 online free, (or maybe just
the first 3 eps) and the first couple of eps from each of the other
seasons, you could possibly sell a lot more DVDs... 8-)
Pelzo63
<< A) Since when have US ... laws needed to be "authorised by
the general public"? >>
completely unrelated to the topic at hand, but to answer your question. (yes, i
delted "international")
since 1776. and every 2 years therafter.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," American
Declaration of Independence.
...Chrs
People like you make me want to access your brain, and type rm -r -f /
mi...@corestore.org
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On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 03:23:36 +0000 (UTC), Matt Ion
<sou...@moltenimage.com> wrote:
Agreed.
Ding!
Ding!
>of the injured party.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
not defending downloading. Or, more accurately, freeloading.
The problem is you can't pay the folks that deserve it without also
paying off the slimiest lawyers and lobbyists in the Orion Arm.
The media companies own politicians in fee simple. I don't have a
problem with the ownership of creative works (although anyone who
thinks Disney will *ever* let the copyright run out on M. Mouse is
deluded). It's the control freakery & Luddites that gall me. Goes back
to Betamax, probably further back still. DMCA. The super-DMCAs they're
pushing through the states. ReplayTV - when the high heid yin of the
MPAA says 'skipping commercials is theft', I know we're in the realm of
newspeak. Flags in HDTV broadcasts which can prevent you exercising
your right (as determined by the SC) to record. DVD region coding, ye
gods and little fishes! The whole control freakery of DVDs which led to
DECSS, suppression of DECSS, and the persecution of 'DVD Jon'. Breaking
the CD specs to stop you playing CDs in your PC, car, etc. The list
seems endless.
Sending corporate lawyers after a granny (they probably earn more in a
week than she does in a year) is the icing on the cake. It doesn't just
make them *look* like mafia thugs. Jesus H. Christ - Good King Macbeth
had better PR than these guys, and they're supposed to be in the media
business! Heinlein said it best:
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this
country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a
profit out of the public for a number of years, the government
and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such
profit in the future, even in the face of changing
circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange
doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither
individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court
and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for
their private benefit." - RAH, 'Life Line'
Yes, downloading is illegal. But could the media companies *possibly*
have done anything to make it more attractive?
Mike
http://www.corestore.org
Rangers Catering Corps: 'We boil for the One, we fry for the One'.
Zarggg
> Paul Harper wrote:
>
>> So - Do I feel guilty about downloading the Rangers TV movie which
>> is not as far as I know available anywhere to buy?
>
> http://www.merlin.com.pl/frontend/towar/322942 :)
>
> Jo'Asia
Okay... now how about non-Polish places? :p
Amy Guskin
>>On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 05:17:11 -0500, Steve Lamb wrote
(in article <slrncrg82...@dmiyu.org>):
>
> Said person borrows a copy from the library. As a writer you're paid for
> your work, in part, by the royalties on the sale of your book. As such the
> problem in the second example is not said person copies the book but that
> *said person /borrowed/ the book in the first place!* He has read your work.
> He has not paid for it. One copy can be read by hundreds if not thousands of
> people. In short thanks to libraries you, the author, are out tens to
> hundreds of dollars *per library*.
>
> Borrow from a library - download from the internet. The net result to
> you, the author, is the same. <<
Wrong. When you borrow from a library, that's a limited proposition. You
have to return that book so that someone else can take it out of the
collection for their three-week turn. If you really, really loved the book,
and think you'll want to read it again and again, you'd have to buy it.
If you've downloaded all of the content, where's your incentive to buy that
copy? And again, if you give me the argument that there are people who
wouldn't buy the book anyway, well then, that's fine. Let 'em get it from a
library, decide they don't like it, and _return it_. Just because they
believe they deserve to be able to have access to everything ever created
does not make it so. If their library doesn't carry the book, they should
put in a request and wait for the copy to arrive, like other law-abiding
readers.
And if you feel that's too much effort for a book you may eventually hate and
never even want to finish reading...tough.
>>> To the writer word of mouth is the best form of advertisement. Their
> books being checked out of a library, a friend lends a friend a book of
> thiers. Internet sharing being the ultimate form of word-of-mouth. It costs
> the author nothing and in turn they reap benefits. See Eric's Essay above.<<
No, internet sharing is not "the ultimate form of word-of-mouth." Usenet
newsgroups, and message boards, are. If you want to join a newsgroup and
talk about an author's works, get those works legitimately and then join in
the conversation. Don't steal the author's works, because you _are_ taking
food out of their mouths. If you disagree with me, please cite your
professional credentials in any industry that distributes creative works.
Or, tell me about your own creative works and how you've benefited from
people downloading them _without your permission_.
And before you snap my head off in response, I should mention that I have a
LOT of original content available for free download on the internet, but that
stuff is being offered _with my permission_. Which is a crucial difference.
>> But there has been no link between sharing and a loss of residuals. <<
People say that, but the simple fact is that a downloaded copy was not paid
for. And if the person who downloaded it had to buy a copy, they'd either
have bought a copy legitimately...or they wouldn't have the privilege of
owning that work. Very simple.
>> There's this overwhelming sense of entitlement you see these days, where if
>> you WANT something then by god you're entitled to HAVE it, damn the
>> consequences for somebody else, and this is just one aspect of it.
>
> Yes, there is. Normally put forth by those on the left side of the
> political spectrum. ;) <<
Uh...please back up this statement with some facts. Are you saying that
people who are socially/politically liberal are more likely to steal content
off the internet? I'd like to see your sources.
>>> This recently went to court with Harlan Ellison's case against AOL -- which
>> was finally settled out by AOL and new law further created to magnify this
>> position -- that those who upload short stories and novels onto the nets
>> without permission are commiting a crime. And if the role of the TV writer
>> is especially parlous, the fiscal position of prose writers is even MORE
>> fragile.
>
> Then why would the refuse permission for people to dissiminate their
work.
> If people like it they'll look for more. Looking for more means that people
> are interested and are often willing to pay to gain access to more.<<
They are not refusing permission for people to disseminate their work. They
are refusing permission for people to disseminate their work without
permisison, and without compensation. Why shouldn't a creator expect
compensation when you enjoy one of their works??
>>> So it seems to me an odd statement to say, "Boy, I really love this show,
>> the writing, the acting, the directing, so much that I'm going to steal from
>> the people who made it and hurt their income and possibly destroy their
>> ability to tell more such stories in future, THAT'S how much of a fan I am."
>
> Yes, it is, isn't it? So then the libraries which check out DVDs should
> stop? <<
Again, with a library, it's a limited-use situation. You have to return it.
Big difference from downloading something which you can keep forever.
>> When I have my friends over I should keep my 6 boxes of B5 DVD sealed
> shut and say, "Have you seen this show before? Geez, this is a great show
> with an awesome plot, great acting and awesome storytelling. But I can't let
> you see any of it without paying first as that would be stealing from the
> writers, producers, directors, actors, gaffers, make-up artists...." <<
Showing something privately in your own home to a non-paying audience of
friends is not the same as downloading something without paying for it. Your
friends will go home _without_ a copy of that movie/tv show in their hands.
You may very well have whet their appetite to see more; how about if that
drove them to download the entire series for free, without permission, rather
than going down to the store and buying it?
>>>> Again, I ask, is lending a book a crime? Lending a DVD? Having a few
> friends over to see an episode of Babylon 5? In each case the net effect is
> the same: the art is distributed to more people without them paying for it
but
> without the loss of any physical component.<<
Again, I say, "no." A borrowed item from a library or a friend doesn't stay
in the possession of the person.
>>> The problem is that people don't like to be corrected, don't like to be
told
>> that they're doing something wrong. They are defensive, and arrogant, and
>> pushy, and they feel that the world should give them anything they want
>> because they want it, period, and if anybody else has a problem with that,
>> it's THEIR problem.
>
> It is their problem; esp. when it comes to business interests reducing my
> rights through the ever increasing war on fair use without viable and
> reasonable alternatives. Just as you have the right what initial
distribution
> methods are used *I* have the right to redistribute that work through other
> methods which have, up to this point, been rarely argued against. I can lend
> my books. I can show my friends a show when they come over. I can sell/buy
> books/movies at used book/movie stores. The question isn't if sharing is
> illegal because lord help us if it is. Kidergarden classes around the nation
> would have to have crayon monitors. No, the question is whether or not this
> new form of sharing (IE, no material loss) is significantly different from
all
> prior forms of sharing (which have no material loss).
>
> You think it is. I, and others, don't think so. <<
And I think you're wrong. It's right there in your statement, "esp. when it
comes to business interests reducing MY RIGHTS..." What about Joe's rights,
or any other creators? You want to read the book, see the show, watch the
movie, hear the song, and damn anybody who created it who maybe wants to oh,
say, earn some income from having provided you with that small pleasure?
The main problem with pretty much anybody making this argument is that they
minimize the participation of the most important person in the process: the
creator.
You redistributing the SINGLE copy that you obtained legitimately - by
lending it to a friend, giving it away for Christmas, or selling it to a used
bookstore - is a completely different situation than someone uploading a
digital copy to the internet, free for the taking to millions of people, as
many as want it. You can only sell or give away your used book once.
>>> So you equate file sharers with deadbeats. Your presumption is that
any
> file shared is a sale lost, period. That is verifiably untrue. <<
No, it is actual fact. A freely obtained copy is a copy that wasn't paid
for.
>>You are
> making the presumption that those who share files (as opposed to books, dvds
> or other material methods of sharing) instantly and without exception never
> purchase anything or, as you put it, "get pissed off when you ask that they
> share the burden." <<
No, that's not what he said. I'm sure that some people who file share do
ultimately buy the product if they like it; the point is, what about the
dozens/hundreds/thousands of things they obtained for free that they don't
like and _didn't_ buy? Why should they have had the freedom to steal a copy
to determine whether or not they wanted to fund that artist? They could have
waited for their library to bring in a copy, they could have bought a copy
and then sold it on half.com...but instead their ego told them that their
needs for immediate gratification had to be filled.
>>> I purchased all 5 seasons of Babylon 5 and watched them with my wife
who
> did not pay for the priveledge.<<
Oh, please, if you're going to argue this at least understand copyright law.
That was not a public exhibition/performance, and is perfectly legal.
>> I lent Season 1 of Babylon 5 to my parents so they may view it without
> paying for the privledge.
>
> I bought _Babylon 5: Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant_ from a used book
> store from which no royalties are derived.
>
> I allowed, no... encouraged my wife to read the Technomage series, the
> Centauri Prime series and the Psi Corps series of babylon 5 books without
> charging for it or passing on your due compensation.
>
> I lent out several of my Babylon 5 books to coworkers without charing for
> it or passing on your due compensation.<<
And so are these. If, however, you took your Babylon 5 DVDs and uploaded
them to alt.binaries.multimedia.stolenmovies, then you'd be the person we're
talking about when we talk about stealing money from creators.
>> If you feel that these are not crimes against you then please, enlighten
> me, on how they are any different than any other form where the art which is
> separate from the medium that carres it is transferred from one person to
> another?<<
Single copy. Unlimited copies. How much more simple could this get?
Amy
--
http://www.zongoftheweek.com
Free and legal downloads of fun, original songs
This week's zong: "What I Ate on my Christmas Vacation"
This week's on Kids' Zong: A Big Sack of Christmas Zongs
Steven Grimm
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> Similarly, you may have purchased a B5 book from a used bookstore, but
> that was _after_ someone else purchased it new somewhere else. And
> again, buying a single copy of a book used is different from making
> potentially millions of copies available online. After all, if someone
> were to put that book online, making it available to one and all, how
> many fewer physical copies do you suppose would have sold in the stores
> or through online sites like Amazon?
If I had to take a guess... zero, in a lot of cases.
At least, that's been the experience of authors who have actually put
their work online for downloading and measured the result, rather than
just making assumptions about what would happen. The two most well-known
examples:
http://www.baen.com/library/ (many authors including Niven and Bujold)
http://www.craphound.com/ (Cory Doctorow)
Cory Doctorow won Locus's 2003 "Best First Novel" award and the 2004
Sunburst Award (more or less the Canadian version of the Nebula). So he
has some credibility as a published writer, and isn't just some random
freeloader. He has written extensively about his free-downloading
experiment. This presentation about E-books is a good roundup of his
thoughts.
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/presentations/et2004/doctorow.txt
And then there's Stephen King, whose Internet publishing trial balloon,
"The Plant," convinced him that selling his work online would never work
because people passed it around and he didn't get enough money for it.
Well, Stephen, I read the initial free teaser of that story, and the
reason I didn't pay for the rest was: it was awful. I've bought many
other Stephen King books and was ready and willing to pay him for
another good story. But not for a lousy one. It had nothing to do with
the publishing technology and nothing to do with piracy or file sharing.
The "downloads are lost sales" mindset divides the world into two groups
of people: those who are interested in a book and those who aren't. The
former will pay for it, the latter won't, and downloaders are obviously
interested, so by downloading they're simply avoiding paying. As a view
of the problem it is clean, simple, straightforward, and wrong.
For one thing, there are people who haven't made up their minds yet.
They might be interested, they might not, but they need to try it out
first. Baen's Free Library has netted them a substantial number of sales
to those people. It is not credible to claim that had the freebies not
been there, Baen's sales would have been just as good. They have the
numbers that say otherwise, and their Free Library has only grown over time.
CD sales are up 10% in 2004 (according to Nielsen SoundScan) despite
rampant music downloading and a slow economy. Where is all that extra
music going, if people who download are therefore not purchasing music?
Could it be they're downloading *and* buying?
Here's the bottom line. Every single time -- I challenge anyone to find
me even *one* counterexample -- publishing industries have been
confronted with a new duplication technology, they have cried loudly
that the market was about to be flooded with cheap or free copies, tried
to drum up sympathy and moral outrage, and painted the artists as
helpless victims. And in the end, exactly the opposite has turned out to
actually be the case: the ones who embraced the new technology rather
than fighting it ended up more profitable, their products more widely
available than ever before, and a new generation of artists had a
brand-new medium in which to express new ideas. It happened with the
printing press. With records. With radio. With broadcast television.
With cassette tapes. With cable television. With the VCR. And now,
maybe, with the Internet, though we won't have the benefit of hindsight
for a decade or two. Go back to the debates about every one of those
things and you will find people making the exact same predictions of
imminent financial collapse and rampant theft that we're seeing today.
Then compare to what really happened.
(Okay, okay, I'll grant you the monks probably weren't out there
painting God as a helpless victim of the printing press's destruction of
their Bible monopoly.)
Frankly, the people on the other side of this argument don't have the
weight of history backing them up. Free flow of information has not, on
balance, been a horrible setback for purveyors of creative content.
Hollywood itself owes its very existence as a filmmaking center to
lawless pirates! Thomas Edison, or rather his Motion Pictures Patent
Company, held the patents on various pieces of filmmaking equipment. So
the dirty creative-property thieves like William Fox (of what would
become 20th Century Fox) and Adolph Zuker (founder of Paramount
Pictures) fled west, to California, where the east coast's law
enforcement network hadn't really assembled yet and where they could
operate outside the reach of the law for long enough to outlast the
expiration of the patents in question. This is all widely-documented
history -- feel free to look it up.
If the no-downloading point of view had won the day back then, there
would have been no upstart maverick film industry in America. Every
single person working in Hollywood today owes his paycheck to the
willingness of people like Zuker and Fox to say, "I'm going to copy your
stuff whether you like it or not."
Something to think about, anyway.
Matthew Vincent
wrote:
>Or like mine, which consists of *every* commercial B5 and
>Crusade VHS tape, *every* B5 and Crusade DVD and pretty
>much *every* B5 audio CD from Chris Franke. All purchased
>at full price as they were issued. Someone somewhere has
>made a mountain of money out of my affection for B5.
>
>So - Do I feel guilty about downloading the Rangers TV movie
>which is not as far as I know available anywhere to buy?
>
>Not one little bit and I forcefully reject the concept that I may be
>criminalised by doing so.
>
>I don't *care* if it's illegal - not one little bit - if the suits
>won't allow me to buy it I will get it some other way. Let 'em sue me.
>
>The failure is at their end, not mine.
>
>To lump all downloaders into one huge category is blinkered and
>shallow, and I am frankly disappointed at some of the attitudes here.
>
>It's like saying all people who enjoy an alcoholic drink are
>alcoholics. And just as credible.
I agree with your argument here, but just wanted to add that I have
the Rangers movie on tape after buying it legally in a store. I'd have
been happy to buy a copy for you and ship it over, if I'd known that
you weren't able to get one in your area.
Matthew
Matthew Vincent
<rrpe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Legality and morality are not equal. There are places in this country
>> where it is illegal to marry someone whose levels of skin pigment are
>> different from your own. There are crappy laws just as there are
>> crappy things people do that are perfectly legal.
>
>Right. Who decides that?
No-one can just *decide* on moral/ethical issues. Rather, ethical
values are something we strive to measure, like the temperature.
Matthew
Matthew Vincent
wrote:
>I have been looking for years for "Blake's 7" on VHS or DVD Region 1.
>
>Not that I could download it illegally, but these conversations always
>make me ask:
>when something is unavailable, is it less horrible to download it?
>
>I suspect the answer is: yes.
I reckon it's yes, too. If a person or (particularly) a corporation
makes something commercially available to the public, and then removes
it from availability to the public, then they should lose the right to
own that intellectual property. At the very least, they should lose
that right until such time as they make the product available to the
public again. (Another example of where this applies is "Abandonware"
computer software.)
On the other hand, something which has never been commercially
available to the public (such as the B5 bloopers) is another matter
entirely, since there's a personal space violation involved, plus the
party has not yet made money from the item.
Matthew
Matthew Vincent
<voxw...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>There is a difference between a physical library and the
>Internet. The difference is this:
>
>Library: ONE PERSON AT A TIME can read a particular book.
>Internet: THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE AT A TIME may
>download a particular file nearly concurrently.
That's very true. Also, an IP owner can choose to sell a book to the
library, whereas an IP owner can choose not to make a particular item
available on the net. In those cases where a party legitimately owns
IP, they should have the right to be the one to choose what they think
will be in their own best interests. (Note, however, that *my* idea of
when a party should be entitled to IP differs from the current law's
idea, particularly when it comes to parties who have already made
excessive profits from a particular item.)
>I'm not sure this is the best place in this discussion for this
>comment, but I'm writing here. this is in support of the "internet is
>not free" argument that's been brought up elsewhere in this thread.
>
>The cartoonist of User Friendly has this contract with the 'net
>community, and I think it's germaine to this discussion in many ways.
>I have his permission to post it here (Thanks, Illiad) with the
>addition this link: http://www.userfriendly.org (The comic, BTW, is
>very funny, and geek oriented, and there are a lot of B5 fans that
>hang out there as well)
>
>These words are not mine, but I think they bear reading. This is from
>someone who VOLUNTARILY puts their work online...
>
>begin quote
>---
>
>CONTRACT IMPLICIT: CREATORS ON THE WEB
>
>This is a contract that I think has, in one form or another, been
>implied since the first creator/artist placed his work on the 'Net for
>all to see and enjoy. Now that it's written out, it isn't implicit any
>longer. But it's still a "contract" that exists only as a list of
>expectations, ones that cannot be legally enforced. I'm simply hoping
>that everyone sees this contract as fair, and that you'll go along
>with it because your conscience guides you in that direction. Kind of
>an "ethical self-enforcement."
>
>It is with such hopes that I will continue to adhere to my side of the
>contract.
>
>Note: Some of the points below are my own promises that need not apply
>to other creators. It's a personal thing.
>
>I WILL PROVIDE one cartoon a day, every day, 365 days a year (366 on
>leap years).
>I WILL ALWAYS be the author of the daily cartoon. I will not feature
>guest cartoonists to fill in for an absence.
>I WILL NOT use the daily cartoon as a promotion vehicle for
>$CORPORATION. What goes in the daily cartoon is limited to the story I
>wish to tell. Any products or services within the daily cartoon exist
>solely for the sake of the story.
>I UNDERSTAND that making a living from this is a privilege, not a
>right.
>I WILL NOT ever run pop-ups, pop-unders or anything that takes over
>the browser.
>I WILL STRIVE to only run ad banners that are relevant to the
>audience.
>I WILL NOT gate off the cartoon to paying members only. I understand
>that not everyone has money to spend and that they can contribute in
>ways other than with cash.
>I WILL ALWAYS remain within the boundaries of ethical behaviour and
>will let my conscience be my guide.
>In return, I hope:
>
>YOU WILL RESPECT my intellectual property and acknowledge
>my sole right to determine how it will be used and distributed.
Certainly a fair request. (Except that, as I've covered elsewhere,
once a party makes their IP commercially available to the public they
should not necessarily have the right to withdraw this, such as in the
case of "Abandonware" computer software. Once a party creates demand
for a product in this way, it's their own fault if they stop providing
the product, and they don't deserve to have the law prevent people
from acquiring the product through downloading.)
>YOU UNDERSTAND that content is not actually "free"; someone has to put
>their time, money and/or effort into creating and distributing it.
Remuneration is only one of the many reasons why people put time,
money and effort into putting their ideas onto a website. Still, each
individual is free to choose to request that persons who visit their
website pay money under certain conditions.
>YOU WILL support myself and the other independent creators
>whose work you enjoy through the purchase of memberships,
>visiting our advertisers or even just by spreading the word
>and letting us know you like what we do.
Again, basically a fair request.
>YOU WILL NOT use an ad blocker, particularly when you
>can turn the ads off by buying a membership.
I don't agree with this one, though. Ads are a waste of someone's time
if they've already decided that they're not interested in pursuing any
ads that come up. Nothing is gained by forcing ads on the unwilling. A
better idea would be for the site to give readers a reason to *want*
to look at their ads.
>YOU UNDERSTAND that you don't have a right to free
>content on the 'Net.
I have the right to be damned pissed off if it became more common than
not for people who put content on the net to charge money for it. I'm
glad that's not the kind of society we live in right now, for all its
other faults in the area of financial selfishness. Most content on the
net is free and I certainly hope it stays that way.
On the other hand, if he means that I don't have the right to view
anything on the net for free just because it's on the net, then I'd
agree with that. (Whilst there's some merit in the idea of keeping the
net as a money-free haven with respect to ideas, I think it's probably
outweighed by the benefit to certain industries of bypassing the
corporate system and selling products directly to consumers. A truly
complicated area, though, in any case.)
>YOU WILL ALWAYS remain within the boundaries of ethical
>behaviour and will let your conscience be your guide.
Indeed.
Matthew
Charles Edmondson
>>>On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 05:17:11 -0500, Steve Lamb wrote
>
> (in article <slrncrg82...@dmiyu.org>):
>
>
>>
>>>You mean, aside from the fact that it's massively illegal?
>>
>>
>>>books. But instead of buying them, you know where there's a blind spot in
>>>your local bookstore where the mirrors can't catch you, so you just go in,
>>>grab his latest book, shove it in your bag, and leave.
>>
>>data under question. There is an defined loss because of the materials used.
>>That loss does not occur in internet trading. But I'll get to that in a<<
>
>
> I'm getting tired of this argument, which is usually proferred by people who
> do not themselves create anything. You (and others) say that if you're not
> stealing the actual, physical book (e.g. from the bookstore), then no loss
> has occurred. By this logic, apparently in your mind only the bookseller's
> participation in the income stream is valid. And maybe the printer/binder,
> too. But there _is_ a loss when the data, sans actual paper, is stolen. The
> person who stole it would have had to buy a book if they hadn't had an
> opportunity to steal the data. Buying the book benefits the bookseller, the
> printer/binder, the publisher, AND THE CREATOR.
>
> Now you're going to say "that person wouldn't have bought the book anyway."
> Well then, fine. If they weren't going to buy the book (movie/song/etc.)
> anyway...then they SHOULDN'T HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF OWNING IT. Simple enough.
>
> Amy
>
Hi All,
Just to throw my professional two-cents into all this...
I work for a major software company. The software we produce is not
cheap. As a matter of fact, except for the low end stuff I support,
very few of us (Joe included!) could afford to even purchase even a
single seat of all the software I work with.
With software that expensive, you better believe we have security and
licensing issues. Yet, we also have downloads available for some of the
low end stuff for free. And there are some very interesting educational
discounts available for schools (after all, if no one know how to use
the software, why would they buy it?)
Yet, we still have a problem with rip-off russian and chinese copies...
Andrew Swallow
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"Simo Aaltonen" <simo...@itu.st.jyu.fi> wrote in message
news:slrncrhmp2....@itu.st.jyu.fi...
> In article <cp7ug3$ikr$1...@titan.btinternet.com>, Andrew Swallow wrote:
> > 1. The laws on media copyright were not authorised by the
> > general public. They were got through Congress by a
> > mixture of enormous bribes and con tricks. Most
> > politicians thought they were industry only bills and
> > did not bother reading them. If warned that they were
> > handling proposed laws designed to send voters to
> > jail Congressmen would have negotiated every clause
> > and required a lot more proof.
>
> I could pick any of the sentences above and base a reply on those, but I
> suspect others will beat me to it, and also do it better than I could. Oh,
> well, I'll take a gentle shot at it anyway:
>
> A) Since when have US (or international) laws needed to be "authorised by
> the general public"?
Even since King John was forced to sign the Magna Carter in 1215.
http://www.magnacarter.info/
British kings rule by consent not divine right. King Charles I never
understood this. US Presidents and senators inherited the same
limitations as British kings.
> B) What's your source on the "enormous bribes and con tricks" thing?
Do you really want a list of "campaign contributions"?
> C) Your estimate of not just one politician's ability, but those of every
> one involved, is breathtakingly uncharitable.
> D) "Warned" by whom? What "proof"?
The warning should have come from which ever paralegal the
lazy congressman got to read the proposed act for him. The only
proof needed is the common sense suspicion that if the studios
are silly and sue the general public then the politician may get caught.
>
> > Hollywood will be punished for that cheat.
>
> That would be the one monolithic Hollywood who planned this whole thing
> and none of the people making their livelihoods there?
The people and companies affected by the punishment will depend
on who devises it. Since I am not involved in the plea bargaining I
will leave this to them. For examples of punishments have a look at
the car industry. (Note: platinum is a very expensive metal for which
there are almost certainly cheaper alternatives.)
>
> > Avoid jury trials against members of the audience,
> > juries do not like cheats.
>
> They like criminals and rip-off artists better?
Having to prove to each jury, beyond reasonable doubt, that the current
copyright law should exist will slow the prosecutions case down
somewhat. Take into account that the jury has a financial interest
in the studio losing and if they return not guilty the 12 year old girl
is officially not a criminal.
>
> > Could similar laws to the current ones have been negotiated
> > with the general public? Probably but it would have taken
> > several years.
>
> Negotiated how?
One of the side jobs of congressmen is negotiating agreements
between groups, some of which get formalised in laws.
Congressional committees can call witnesses including members
of the general public and lobby groups. Currently there are no
groups lobbying for copyright to be limited to say 6 months but
creating some would not be difficult.
For those who prefer the use of advocates - the representatives
for Los Angeles and Nashville are the advocates for the
film and music industry. All other senators and congressmen
are the paid representatives of the general public.
(Note: what is the giving of money to the advocate of the other
side during a case called? We are talking morality here not
letter of the law.)
>
> > 2. There is a difference between downloads and unpaid
> > downloads. PayPal and credit cards exists - use them.
>
> You've lost me. How many places even offer how many SF (or other) series
> up for legal, paid downloading? And if the place is illegal, do you
> propose to just send money in the production company's general direction?
The legal down load of Crusade should have gone on sale via
Warner Brothers' website on the say day as the DVDs.
For legal down loading try these
http://www.hollywood.com/about_us/info/id/1723117
The BBC's website downloads radio programs in both real time
and selected ones up to 1 week after transmission. They are
working on tv downloads.
www.bbc.co.uk
McAfee sells its software in downloadable format from its web sites.
http://uk.mcafee.com/
Real allows you to down load and watch previews. If you *pay*
for the Premium Guide you can even watch UK Channel 4.
http://uk.real.com/guide/
Downloading of music for money. Notice that computer companies
not record companies are getting the money.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/
http://music.msn.com/
The technology to charge for the downloading of movies
already exists and can be purchased cheaply. So can
PayPal corporate accounts. Any movie mogul who does
not start using them has simply decided to sell his
company's back catalogue to Bill Gates and
Steve Jobs for peanuts. These two gentlemen have
already won negotiations with entertainment
companies for example the music subsidiaries of
Warner Brothers and Sony.
It is legal for a CEO to commit sloth. In a heavily competitive
market he can however expect to be fired for the sin.
Andrew Swallow
> It's amazing how much dishonest justification floats around simply because
> a wrong is widely practiced.
>
> Simo Sakari Aaltonen
> (simo...@cc.jyu.fi)
>
> www.adventurecompanion.com
>
>
Laura Appelbaum
as an alleged response to jms' post, how about this, legitimate arguement:
in the case that was cited at the beginning of this thread, the people
responsible for the show in question specifically *asked people NOT to
download it.* This isn't a case of MST3K where at the end of every early
episode they wrote "please keep circulating the tapes," thus *encouraging*
viewers to copy the show and share it, this is a situation where the
creators say they don't want alleged fans to make copies. The law is almost
irrelevant in this case; basic decency demands that if someone specifically
says "don't," you don't. That's all that really matters.
LMA
Anders
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Another problem is for those who live in countries where good Science
Fiction is not sent on tv. In order to stay legal the fans beg their
tv-channels to send the shows (which they refuse to do), and spent a
lot of money buying DVD's from the USA. Some shows never seem to appear
on DVD though, or at least it takes many years before they do, and many
kids have no chance at all to afford buying DVD's from other countries.
I suggest that the networks start selling the episodes online, each
episode with a serial number encrypted/hidden (or something similar)
into the episode. If someone puts it out on the net for filesharing,
that person can be brought in to court and tried based on the evidence,
since every single download will have a different number. That way
everyone earns money, the companies and the actors get their well
earned cash, and fans get more affordable and better service.
Laura Appelbaum
news:20041209033744...@mb-m14.aol.com...
> >Well, not trying to argue - but just follow-up "questions":
>>
> >3) What about downloading vs. VCR use?
>
> Again, apples/oranges. If you have it on a VCR, it's because it's been
> broadcast to you, and you have your copy, and the system is legal. When
you
> digitize it and make multiple copies available, then you are no longer
keeping
> a single record for your archives, you are becoming a distributer without
a
> license.
And again, as I pointed out in my earlier reply, there's the quality issue.
When you have a VCR copy, what you have is a *copy*, full of the original
ads, etc, and if you try to make a copy of that copy, you end up with
something barely visible that by no means is an equal replacement of the
archival original that was broadcast. It might be something a really
devoted fan who happened to miss that episode would be willing to squint at
to keep current, but no one is going to consider it a valued substitute for
a professionally and legally released DVD.
LMA
Rob Perkins
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SamusekTDS wrote:
> If I
> don't see the commercials because of TIVO or a simple VCR, then what's
> the difference if the person I got it from has pre-cut them out?
The difference is with a DVR you're received the commercials, whether or
not you skipped 'em while watching the recording.
Another problem is that that person has the right to edit his copy of a
received show, but not to *give it to you*. You can watch it with him at
his house or yours, but you can't have that copy.
(It's interesting, but I actually end up watching commercials when
skipping past them, if they catch my eye as I'm pushing the 30-second
button.)
> If I am
> not a Nielsen person, how can what I do matter?
One day you're virtually guaranteed to be asked about your preferences,
by keeping a Nielson log. It's not the real-time ratings machine, but it
is the way most people get their preferences into the ratings system.
Rob
Captain Infinity
>> 3) What about downloading vs. VCR use?
>
>You paid for VCR/DVR recording by also taking up the commercials aired.
>You didn't take commercials with your downloads.
So it would be OK to download a copy that had commercials intact?
**
Captain Infinity
Paul Harper
wrote:
>Paul Harper wrote:
>
>> So - Do I feel guilty about downloading the Rangers TV movie which is
>> not as far as I know available anywhere to buy?
>
>http://www.merlin.com.pl/frontend/towar/322942 :)
Okay <grin> Anywhere in *English* :-)
Captain Infinity
>Or, conversely, you borrow a
>copy from the library, go to the office where you work and can use the copy
>machine for free, photocopy the entire book and keep it.
I just want to play devil's advocate here for a second, because I really
do agree with all your points, but...the Library thing.
How is photocopying and keeping a copy of a library book different from
just borrowing the library book itself? There is no additional loss of
sales, because by offering the free reading copy the library has already
usurped that. By which I mean, because the library bought the book the
reader has no need to. Since he can borrow it any time he wants he can,
in essence, consider it his own, free copy...jut one that happens to live
on a shelf in the library rather than a shelf in his living room.
It seems to me that writers would *detest* libraries, since they offer
the works to casual readers from whom the writer never sees a cent. Not
only that, but don't libraries get deep discounts on their purchases?
Doesn't that also eat into the writer's income?
I want to make it clear, before I sign off, that I find the idea of
photocopying a library book inherently disgusting. I'm just curious
about where the distinction, as regards sales, is made.
**
Captain Infinity
Paul Harper
wrote:
>The upcoming revival of Dr. Who is going to kill me. *cries*
>I live in the U.S.A.
It will inevitably be available from the BBC on DVD (and probably VHS
too) shortly after transmission. Are you sure you can't play R2 discs?
I know the encoding regime (and I use the word quite deliberately) is
more ... vigorous ... over there, but is it possible to get
multi-region players? It's pretty much standard over here in the UK,
and not remotely illegal - in fact I just bought three of them for my
kids for Christmas from Amazon - at around 30 pounds each, they're too
cheap to turn down!
Mark Alexander Bertenshaw
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>
> [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ]
>
> [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
>
> @aol.com says...
>>> 3) What about downloading vs. VCR use?
>>
>> been broadcast to you, and you have your copy, and the system is
>> legal. When you digitize it and make multiple copies available,
>> then you are no longer keeping a single record for your archives,
>> you are becoming a distributer without a license.
>>
>>
>
>
> I record a sow on my PVR built into my PC because I wasnt home at the
> time to watch it.
Craig -
I'm intrigued. I've heard of bird-watching - but pig-watching??
> I then burn this to DVD so I can take it on a trip
> with me. I watch it and then give the disc to a friend to watch. That
> would be fine with your reasoning above.
And you have friends doing this as well?
--
Mark Bertenshaw
Kingston upon Thames
UK
Robert
> Well, not trying to argue - but just follow-up "questions":
>
In some countries beating your wife if legal, or at least gray, but that
doesn't make it right. It just means that the legislators in that country
deserve to be replaced.
> 2) There is a large chain of bookstores that encourages people to come and
> sit and read, by putting chairs out all through the store. And people do
> spend hours doing that.
Ok, but this is the same as libraries. Borrowing a book, CD, or DVD, without
permanently keeping it, is a time-honored legal and ethical act that writers
and musicians approve of. Since no one keeps the borrowed item permanently,
this is not the same as an illegal copy.
> 3) What about downloading vs. VCR use?
Hmm, we do have the right to make a single copy of an episode we watch on
television, for our own private use. But this presumes that we made our
legal copy from a legal TV broadcast, which paid for the show, and did so
via the use of commercial advertisements.
The additional activity of downloading musics, TV shows, and books on top of
this practice has slowly been killing the industry, for all of the economic
reasons that Joe explained.
The best way to kill B5 (or any other favorite show or musics or writing) is
to illegally download material.
Robert Kaiser
Robert
> Legality and morality are not equal. There are places in this country
> where it is illegal to marry someone whose levels of skin pigment are
> different from your own. There are crappy laws just as there are crappy
> things people do that are perfectly legal.
Huh? What country to you live in?
>> You CAN do it, sure. But does that make it right?
> No, because you've deprived the store of that *physical property*. It's
> no longer there for them to make money on.
> With someone downloading something, there is no "physical loss".
No, that is a canard used by those justifying theft of intellectual
property. The physical property you mention is actually worthless. A $25
book is made of only 50 cents worth of paper and ink...but the bookstore
paid a lot more for the book than that. This is because the bookstore is
paying not for the physical property of the ink and paper, but rather for
the intellectual property of the words on said paper. The same is true for
CDs and DVDs, which cost only 25 cents each to make; the payment is for the
intellectual property on the CDs and DVDs, not the cheap plastic itself.
When you buy "Babylon 5" or "Star Wars" on DVD, do you really think that you
own those properties? If someone attempted to act on this premise, they
could end up in court, if not in jail. When one buys a DVD of a movie, one
is buying the right to watch a copy of the movie in one's own home, and that
is all.
> But... wait... at the moment, that individual isn't getting *anything*
> for US-based individuals. It's only treading on the *possibility* of
> residuals. And, in actuality, there's a couple other factors:
>
> o People who are so fanatic as to spend four hours downloading an
> online version of a TV episode are also likely to be watching it again
> anyway when it airs
> o People who aren't that fanatic -- people who download it, watch
> it, and then could care less about the actual television airing --
> probably weren't going to watch it past the first run anyway. This is
> important because the first-run of the show is pretty much a sure
> thing. It's paid for, they're going to air it, you're going to get your
> residual for that airing. Now, any future airings (and thus, future
> residuals) are going to be based upon the network's belief that there
> will be repeat viewers. But those people who stole it who "never
> watched it the first time" were never going to be a contributor to the
> residuals anyway.
In a perfect world, perhaps. But in the real world pervasive downloading and
copyright infringement is damaging all areas of entertainment. We have to
deal with the mreal world consequences of these massive downloads, not the
theoretical argument of what could occur in a world of decent-minded folks.
> In other words, the residuals argument is a red herring. The two main
> classes of people who download the video are either (a) people who are
> going to keep watching it whenever you air it because they're uberfans,
> or (b) people who could get a wet slap about (n>1) viewings of the
> show, and were never going to help with future residuals anyway.
> Thus, downloaders have *zero* effect on residuals.
That's false. We know for a fact that the more that a CD or DVD is illegally
downloaded, the more its sales are hurt. Your argument to the contrary is
not just wishful thinking, it is promoting theft of intellectual property.
> Any studio who believes that the people who have DVD-R collections
> with 10,000 movies on them were *really really* going to actually PAY
> FOR 10,000 discs need to have their heads examined. This is money the
> studios *weren't going to see anyway*.
This is true. Movie and record studios should not calculate financial losses
based on the sheer number of illegal downloads. Their losses are a fraction
of the illegal copies - but a fraction that legitimately measures in the
tens of millions of dollars per years.
> o People who dupe individual titles that aren't available in their
> market, or which are out of print
This is a separate point, and it has some merit. But eventually many of
these "out of print" movies and songs have come back into print. However, if
this illegal downloading keeps up they never will. For the good of society
and law and artists, we need to give up the idea that if we want something,
we have the right to simply take it. That's the road to anarchy.
>> So it seems to me an odd statement to say, "Boy, I really love this show,
>> the
>> writing, the acting, the directing, so much that I'm going to steal from
>> the
>> people who made it and hurt their income and possibly destroy their
>> ability to
>> tell more such stories in future, THAT'S how much of a fan I am."
> But downloading the show *isn't* actually stealing. As shown above, it
> isn't taking a penny from their pockets.
Incorrect. See above. This _does_ reduce sales, and quite dramatically. Not
as much as movie studios claim it does, but the reduction is real and
problematic.
On a related note, Jewish readers of this forum may find the following
essays of interest. They regard Jewish law in regards to "Intellectual
Property Rights", from the Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem.
http://www.besr.org/library/index2.html#ipr
http://www.besr.org/ethicist/downloadmusic.html
Robert Kaiser
Kurt_eh
>>1) In Canada, most downloading is so far not-illegal, but "grey".
For intel on Canadian copyright law, the Canadian Intellecutal Property
Office has a website with everything you need at http://cipo.gc.ca
I've been on that board arguing the other side that Sam is.
Matt Ion, above, wrote precisely what I've been stating the entire
time.
In Canada, a recent ruling on downloading is that it's legal, under the
"fair use" clause of the copyright act. There's an article at the CBC
website here:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/internet/downloading_music.html
It is still illegal, however to distribute copyrighted materials
without consent of the copyright holder.
Therefore, putting a file in a shared drive, or uploading it to
kazza/BitTorrent/whatever is clearly a violation of the copyright act,
because it is intent to distribute. To argue otherwise is like telling
your insurance investigator that you had no idea that your car would
get stolen if you left it in a bad neighbourhood for 3 hours with the
top down, doors unlocked, keys in the ignition and the engine running.
So in my opinion, although it is legal (under the "fair use" clause) to
download a tv show or song, the media came from an illegal source,
therefore the downloader is (for all intents and purposes) in posession
of "stolen" (or illegally distributed) property.
Rob Perkins
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Steven Grimm wrote:
Steven, you wrote a stirring and very clear description of why the law
is bad and why people behave as they do. I agree with it. Nevertheless:
> If you're still uneasy about that, I'll leave you with three questions.
> Is it immoral for an American to download those episodes and watch them
> before January?
Yes.
> Is it immoral for the same person to visit a friend in
> London and watch them on tape there?
No. (Well, strictly, I don't know, since I don't know what the structure
of law is about home exhibition of a received time-shifted transmission.
But if it is like that in the U.S., then "No.")
> If your answers to those two
> questions aren't the same, why is there a difference?
I believe it is moral and right to obey, honor, and sustain copyright
law, as long as certain inherent and inalienable rights are upheld and
protected. Sorry, but the freedom to copy entertainment product just
isn't at that threshold for me.
So far, the only real consequence of the current implementation of law
is that other people's stuff (mostly entertainment product, it seems)
isn't entering the public domain in my lifetime. But those same
protections are available to the stuff I create. Let's not forget that
that stuff cuts both ways.
So while it's certain that copyright law is skewed today towards
shareholders in certain large corporations, and while it's very true
that the leaders of those corporations have behaved very badly in
reaction to changing technologies, it remains immoral to flout copyright
law and hide from the consequences, even if a roughly equivalent
behavior is not illegal.
Rob
umarc
>In some countries beating your wife if legal, or at least gray, but that
>doesn't make it right. It just means that the legislators in that country
>deserve to be replaced.
I'd trade most of our politicians for Canada's in a heartbeat.
umar
Andrea B. Novin
First off I don't file share with people, but I do make VHS tapes off
some shows
for my own future use. I do not sell these, pass these around or give
them away.
As far as I am concerned I am breaking no copywrite laws.
Second, I don't record anything off of SciFi channel for several
reasons. The two most important are the receiption I get on my cable
for SciFi sucks, but not as nearly much as most of the shows on SciFi.
Third, as a person who pushes technical information and services for a
living, I despise people who priate my work because it is money out of
my pocket. Now I am sure JMS writes for other reasons besides money, and
I do engineering for reasons besides cash; however I cannot not keep
doing my job if the money does not flow in. I am sure JMS is in the same
boat.
He who steals my purse may steal trash, but he who steals my methods and
procedures steal my livelyhood.
Steven Grimm
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> THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE THESE SHOWS, the people like those on Galactica who started
> this conversation, people like me and others, the people you say you respect,
> HAVE ASKED YOU TO STOP DOING IT...have been pleading with you, don't do
> it...don't you understand that you are hurting the field, hurting jobs...this
> isn't theoretical, this is the real, honest to god people who MAKE WHAT YOU SAY
> YOU LIKE, asking you to PLEASE not do this.
>
> And your message back to them is: fuck off, I do what I want.
That's not a very accurate characterization. The message is more: "I
like and respect your work. But I don't believe you're correct about the
effect this will have on your livelihood."
So far I have not been able to find someone who's willing to show me the
lost money. Say I download an episode of Galactica. I like it enough to
tape it from Sci-Fi and watch it again when it airs (much better picture
on a nice big TV.) I like it enough to buy the DVD set. Where is the
lost money here? Who has failed to be paid? To advertisers, I am the
same set of eyeballs watching the same number of broadcast ads. So
they'll pay the same rates and the artists will get paid the same amount
by the network. To the DVD publisher, I am the same retail purchaser of
the same DVDs. Once again, the artists will get paid the same royalties
on the same sale price. What have I missed? Where is the extra money
coming from if I do all of the above except the downloading? Where does
it go?
I know a bunch of SF fans who bought the "Firefly" DVD set when it came
out. (I'm one of them.) And many of them, the ones who were able,
downloaded the unaired episodes off the net before the DVDs came out.
(Again, I'm one of them.) If downloading shows is so detrimental... who
have we put out of work here?
Downloaders have good reason to be skeptical. A couple years back we
heard big-name bands like Metallica saying the same thing as Moore and
company: stop it, you're going to kill our industry, you're hurting the
artists you say you like. People ignored them, by and large, and music
downloads skyrocketed.
Did the music industry suffer huge losses because people stopped paying
for their product and instead grabbed it all for free off the net? For a
while it looked like Metallica and friends were right: music sales
dropped for three years in a row starting in 2001, right around the time
downloading took off. But on closer examination, the drop wasn't
correlated with downloading! Earlier this year a Harvard economist
crunched the numbers and concluded to his surprise that the correlation
between lost sales and downloading was "statistically indistinguishable
from zero." Other factors, such as the economic downturn and tapering
off of people buying replacements for vinyl records, were apparently to
blame.
http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/pdf/2003yearEnd.pdf
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/04.15/09-filesharing.html
But now it's 2004. And even with millions of people still downloading
music, CD sales in the first half of 2004 are up 10% over the first half
of 2003. And that's just CD sales; it ignores zero-marginal-cost outlets
like iTunes, a pure profit center for the music industry which isn't
exactly floundering for lack of paying customers.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20041022-4341.html
Should everyone have listened to Metallica and stopped downloading
music? Maybe, maybe not. But if they had, it wouldn't have saved any
music industry jobs, if you believe the Harvard study. And I'd argue,
though this is just speculation, that no file sharing back then would
probably mean no iTunes, which is now feeding free money into the RIAA's
coffers.
Maybe we should have listened to Jack Valenti in 1982 and not bought
VCRs because, and as head of the MPAA he should know!, they were surely
going to kill Hollywood. "I say to you that the VCR is to the American
film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the
woman home alone," were his words to Congress at the time. I'm sure the
movie industry would be doing much better now if he'd had his way and
there was no such thing as home video.
Or flash forward to 1997, when Fox and Paramount refused to have
anything to do with a new format called DVD, out of fears of digital piracy.
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/oldstudionews/paramount.html
Regardless of how much I enjoy the creative side of things, people
working in entertainment just don't have a very good track record of
accurately predicting what's going to cause them harm, especially when
piracy is involved. (It doesn't help that Hollywood is what it is
*because* of piracy, namely the filmmakers who moved to California to
avoid Thomas Edison's filmmaking-equipment licensing requirements.
Though I doubt many downloaders are aware of that historical irony.)
And that's why it is not a completely irrational, unreasonable thing to
enjoy what Moore is creating but remain skeptical of what he's asking.
It is not a simple cut-and-dried case of a bunch of selfish whining
babies in blind denial of the indisputable fact that they're putting
artists out of work every time they download something. If it is, it
should be easy to produce facts and figures to show causation, but
despite the enormous PR value of such a document, I know I've never
heard of it. If you have, then please, point me to it! I've been wrong
before and, believe it or not, I actually like to have my point of view
challenged by solid evidence.
To solve the download problem, what the industry needs is not
less-scummy customers, or lawsuits, or protracted friction between
artists and viewers. What the industry needs is a video iTunes with
recent content. When it happens (and I believe it will, though not
without lots of kicking and screaming on the part of doomsaying network
execs) this whole discussion will become academic -- everyone for whom
downloading is about convenience, about flexibility, and about
availability will fork over their money, and each one of them will be
more profitable to the studios than they would have been as an
advertising viewer. iTunes shows that this is not simple posturing:
substantial numbers of customers are out there waiting to pay cold hard
cash to download their entertainment.
Does that make illegal downloading right in the meantime? No, it's
irrelevant to the question of right and wrong. But it does make
downloading *inevitable* in the meantime: as with many other things,
people know what they want, they sense intuitively (correctly or no)
that they are not causing harm by having it, and they're going to try to
get it whether or not there's a legal means of doing so. There are still
people trying marijuana for the first time after a century of
prohibition and twenty years of a sustained drug war. The sooner
Hollywood turns that constant of human nature to their advantage, rather
than trying to fight it, the sooner they'll be making even more money
and regarding their customers as partners rather than adversaries.
SamusekTDS
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Jms at B5 wrote:
>
> Case in point...I know that a lot of British fans didn't watch Jeremiah when it
> got there because they'd seen the downloads. (I know, I saw the discussions.)
> So now we have to parse between the original US broadcast and all the rest of
> the world.
Hmm... when I started this thread, I thought you might be a bit more
liberal on this point (while of course, still always remaining firmly
pro-creators' rights). Because there is an aspect to be liberal about.
You can be firmly in favor of crushing anyone making illegal copies,
while at the same time realizing the flaws in the system that create the
scenario. (ie: Poverty breeds crime - is the larger problem poverty or
crime - not that this is quite the same, just saying.)
Ah, well.
I don't understand where you get the numbers on downloading that say it
is SIGNIFICANT. From what I can see, the immediate (liberal estimate) of
numbers on people downloading BSG each week right now are
50,000-100,000. I get this by collating the numbers on the main
bittorrent tv show sites, and then "guesstimating" for a few additional
people here and a few there. (Not THE most scientific, I know, but there
it is - IMHO the reasonable best anyone can do.)
If I use the same method for other shows, that is not as high as many
"reality" and other "mainstream" shows. (Joey, Scrubs, etc)
If that is the case, and these numbers hold - how is this significant?
Many of those people are in foreign markets, and ratings in North
America are about millions of people. Obviously if it grew in number it
would eventually pose a problem, but people are saying (including you)
that it ALREADY is a problem.
So where are you getting that from? What proof can be provided of the
harm this is doing?
---
Sam.
Laura Appelbaum
news:UgHud.1074691$Gx4.964698@bgtnsc04-
> On a related note, Jewish readers of this forum may find the following
> essays of interest. They regard Jewish law in regards to "Intellectual
> Property Rights", from the Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem.
>
Way cool -- that's a site that's getting a bookmark! Thanks for sharing it.
LMA
Stuart Lamble
> So, if WB were to put all of say, Season 1 online free, (or maybe just
> the first 3 eps) and the first couple of eps from each of the other
> seasons, you could possibly sell a lot more DVDs... 8-)
In the case of B5, you'd be more likely to sell a lot more DVDs by
putting Season 1 online free. B5 takes time to really get rolling; IMO,
you don't really start to get a feel for it until at least "And the Sky
Full of Stars"; I'd argue that you'd get a better feel if you go all the
way through to "Chrysalis".
Sort of like drug dealers: the first hit is free. ;)
Stuart Lamble
> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 02:14:31 +0000 (UTC), krueg...@hotmail.com
> wrote:
>
>>The upcoming revival of Dr. Who is going to kill me. *cries*
>>I live in the U.S.A.
>
> It will inevitably be available from the BBC on DVD (and probably VHS
> too) shortly after transmission. Are you sure you can't play R2 discs?
The problem in the US isn't so much the region coding; it's the format.
The UK, Australia, Europe, and a bunch of other places use PAL (or
formats that are so similar to PAL that conversion is trivial between
them) for their broadcast and DVD format. The US uses NTSC.
In Australia, if you buy a TV nowadays, it's a certainty that it will
handle both PAL and NTSC. In the US, if you buy a TV, it's a near
certainty that it will handle only NTSC. Adding NTSC support to a PAL TV
is fairly straightforward, and the demand is sufficient that it's well
worth while. Adding PAL support to an NTSC TV is a lot harder, and the
demand simply isn't there (TTBOMK.)
Result: if you are in the US, and you import DVDs from the UK, you're
probably not going to be able to play them back in a satisfactory
manner. It doesn't matter if your DVD player can handle them; it's a
question of whether the TV can handle the output from the DVD player.
Stuart Lamble
that. :)
On 2004-12-11, Amy Guskin <ais...@fjordstone.com> wrote:
> If you've downloaded all of the content, where's your incentive to buy that
> copy?
The quality, for starters: a well mastered DVD is going to be far nicer
to watch than even the best re-compressed DVD rip. The desire to do the
right thing by those whose works you have enjoyed. The desire to have
something a bit less ephemeral than bits on a hard drive that might be
deleted at any time (ok, so a DVD could be destroyed, but you'd hope
that that would be a less likely proposition than a hard drive going
belly up.)
My honest opinion is that people will, given the choice at a reasonable
price point, do the right thing by the creators. If they don't know if
they'll enjoy something, however, they're more likely to hand over their
hard earned if they can get a free (or at the least, very cheap)
sampler. I'd be seriously interested in figures (derived at by serious
studies, not anecdotal!) that show how many (percentage wise)
downloaders later purchased the very same item that they downloaded
illicitely; how many deleted the item and never went back to it; and how
many watched the illicit copy multiple times.
The first group means more money in the creator's pocket. The third
means less. I would agree with an assessment of the third group as
freeloaders; the first and second group, IMO, are not so easily
categorised.
LK
<sam...@yahoo.com> wrote:
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>
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>
>Jms at B5 wrote:
> >
>> Case in point...I know that a lot of British fans didn't watch Jeremiah when it
>> got there because they'd seen the downloads. (I know, I saw the discussions.)
>> So now we have to parse between the original US broadcast and all the rest of
>> the world.
>
>Hmm... when I started this thread, I thought you might be a bit more
>liberal on this point (while of course, still always remaining firmly
>pro-creators' rights). Because there is an aspect to be liberal about.
>
>You can be firmly in favor of crushing anyone making illegal copies,
>while at the same time realizing the flaws in the system that create the
>scenario. (ie: Poverty breeds crime - is the larger problem poverty or
>crime - not that this is quite the same, just saying.)
That's more of social class argument. Enron and similar white collar
crimes have nothing to do with poverty and everything to do with
greed.
>
>Ah, well.
>
>I don't understand where you get the numbers on downloading that say it
>is SIGNIFICANT. From what I can see, the immediate (liberal estimate) of
>numbers on people downloading BSG each week right now are
>50,000-100,000. I get this by collating the numbers on the main
>bittorrent tv show sites, and then "guesstimating" for a few additional
>people here and a few there. (Not THE most scientific, I know, but there
>it is - IMHO the reasonable best anyone can do.)
>
>If I use the same method for other shows, that is not as high as many
>"reality" and other "mainstream" shows. (Joey, Scrubs, etc)
>
>If that is the case, and these numbers hold - how is this significant?
>Many of those people are in foreign markets, and ratings in North
>America are about millions of people. Obviously if it grew in number it
>would eventually pose a problem, but people are saying (including you)
>that it ALREADY is a problem.
>
>So where are you getting that from? What proof can be provided of the
>harm this is doing?
The simple fact of the people who perform are saying "Stop this. You
are hurting me." Are you a bully who doesn't care and insists on
greed and harm and disrespect? Or do you contribute to disrespect,
financial harm and greed by acting as if performer and writers were
slaves to your desire for entertainment.
"Stop" means "stop". "This hurts" means "this hurts".
You people sound as if you'd happily do anything to freeload off of
someone else's work.
I got a better idea. Become an actor yourself. Or a dancer or a
musician. Create and give.
The time invested in learning and doing with your own body will
benefit your soul and your health for years to come.
LK
(Who started ice skating and dancing at the age of 49 with a heart
condition.)
Rob Perkins
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Matthew Vincent wrote:
> No-one can just *decide* on moral/ethical issues. Rather, ethical
> values are something we strive to measure, like the temperature.
Buh?
But my question was, "Who decides [whether a law is crappy]". Well, even
in your universe, an individual member of society may not decide it. In
our liberal democratic societies, a majority of people may decide it, or
it gets done through legislatures or the courts.
We ought to defer to those bodies, and elect people who agree with us.
The legal privilege to download an ep of "Firefly" is not worth losing
the authority of peaceful government to regulate affairs like this.
Rob
LK
<dr...@megacity.org> wrote:
<massive snip>
>If this was about "getting the rightsholders paid their due share" the
>rightsholders would be bending over so far backwards that they could
>kiss their ankles trying to get the data out there everywhere in
>gazillions of formats, charging for all of them, and acknowledging that
>the few remaining people who weren't willing to pay were people they
>weren't going to get money from anyway because they're the type of
>people who just don't pay for things.
>
>Except, of course, that's not the way the rightsholders behave, is it?
>You can draw your own conclusions from that when trying to figure out
>what it is the rightsholders *do* care about.
>
>Your mileage may vary.
>
>D
>
The simple fact of the people who perform are saying "Stop this. You
are hurting me." Are you a bully who doesn't care and insists on
greed and harm and disrespect? Or do you contribute to disrespect,
financial harm and greed by acting as if performer and writers were
slaves to your desire for entertainment.
"Stop" means "stop". "This hurts" means "this hurts".
You people sound as if you'd happily do anything to freeload off of
someone else's work.
I got a better idea. Become an actor yourself. Or a dancer or a
musician. Create. Learn. Entertain others and get off your butt and
your computer and onto a real high horse or a real stage.
You want something for nothing? There are plenty organizations that
need volunteers to entertain and teach their clients and do the
support work backstage.
The time invested in learning and doing with your _own_ body will
benefit your soul and your health for years to come.
I started ice skating and dancing lessons at the age of 49 with a
heart condition. I plan to perform at both public ally by the time
I'm 51.
....Even a drum can be beaten with one hand.
I wager my courage and results against your self-righteous greed and
bullying any day.
LK