 YowzaaahOurs Go To Eleven
join:2000-12-14
DamnFlat, OH
4 edits | reply to Asmodeus
Re: So find them and swat them again Let's drop the specious use of the word "steal" as it has been appropriated by the media industry.
Steal- through 1000 years of English Common Law (which our laws- with the exception of Louisiana -are based on) has meant, the unlawful taking (removing from the possession, custody or control) of the chattels (physical property) of another with the intent to permanently deprive the owner thereof. Nice, tight and to the point. Even Tommy Jefferson the wine soaked, slave humping, debt laden, "idea man" that slipped the radical new concept of copyright into our Constitution knew that: »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Debate
The non-profit Sharing of music, movies, books or software with other people via the internet fits NONE of the key elements of the crime of THEFT as it has been used for a millennia. The fact that they've made it "theft" via lobbyslation still doesn't make it so to me. It disturbs me that others so willingly accept this as theft. It's an invented CRIME that didn't exist in any way 40 years ago. Copyright existed then too, but if you wanted to GIVE away copies you made of something copyrighted there was NO CRIME committed and the copyright holder would only have been entitled to civil damages in the amount of $ you made giving away the work, i.e. NADA.
Big Brother isn't the government, Big Brother is the media industry that wants you to see the movie in theatres, pay for the PPV, and then buy the limited edition Box DVD or have to buy a $500 Office Suite or $3000 CAD program every 3 years because they've made sure your files are no longer readable by those using the "new and improved" version of the product; and they get to make sure you do this and buy what they want you to, how they want you to by using the power of the government to make you.
Copyright monopoly has NO reason to be as expansive as it is. We need to develop a compulsory licensing schema and abandon this exclusive "ownership" and control crap ASAP. All it does is cost the consumer, stagnate cultural and technical growth and result in the further corruption of elected officials via troughs of money.
BTW, if you are going to claim fictional "sales" lost for every copyrighted work downloaded (assuming that such people would even buy 1/20th of everything they DL), then you need to also buoy them with sales obtained that would not have occurred BUT FOR the existence of P2P. I believe the Napster data proved file sharing was actually a Bonanza for the record companies, but it's NEVER mentioned in the mainstream media when these issues are discussed.
Yes, the non-profit sharing of copyrighted works is currently illegal and as long as jackass organizations like the RIAA, MPAA, ASCAP and BSA are able to throw around nonsense numbers of BILLIONS in lost sales along with suit cases full of money to politicians there will never be a rational debate about the REAL harm, or lack thereof, it actually causes or what "protection" is TRULY needed in order to promote the useful arts and sciences as laid out in our Constitution by Tommy Jeff.
All there will be is a lock-step clamoring for more and more protection and you will experience less and less freedom and more and more control over what you can do with what you "own". But apparently you won't miss those freedoms because "it's stealing" and "it's the law". |
