Piracy is a Competitor → Re: hummm

No comment except BBR seems to advocate piracy and felonious actions to "stick it to the man."

I rarely see BBR reporting on court decisions shutting down crooks (even when I email them).

Why does DRM exist in the first place?

Illegal downloads.

People these days thinks downloading something is a God-given right not something illegal. For every iTunes download, there is probably 200 illegal ones.

AllofMP3.com is nothing more than an illegal site operating under some antiquated Russian law that Putin will crack down on when the time is right.

Bittorrent traffic is 90% illegal.

Give me a break with all this crap. If you saw keys in a car, would you drive off thinking, "Hey, they left the keys in the car. It's mine now."

Pay like your parents did.

If I saw keys in a car and the tech was available the I go in and take digital scans of it inside and out and take it to my house and load the plans into my "Ultrafabricator machine" and produced a duplicate car. Is this illegal?? The car is still on the street where it was left and the owner is free to return to it and drive off into the sunset. The difference is, I could be driving down beside him.

Oh, but you say it's not the same because the car is not for sale? Same diff. I go to a car lot, make my scans, use my ultrafabricator machine and drive off in my new car. All the dealers cars are still there and all of the people who were going to by cars that day still bought them. NO ONE LOST ANYTHING!!

Every CD that was ever recorded, stamped, packaged, and distributed is still on the shelf of anystore usa free for whomever wishes to take to the counter and buy.

It's "intellectual Property" which is asinine in it's entirety. An artist records a song an tries to sell a CD and I download the "digital representation" of the CD, and use it. His CD is still there but it's STEALING?? Are people freakin MENTAL???

If a poet performs and then publishes a book of his work but I was at the performance and MEMORIZED his works, I now have his works in my HEAD, I have a "mental representation" of his "intellectual property". If I write this down in a notepad, I have it. Is this illegal? You would say "Of course not, you didn't take anything." EXACTLY! A computer just automates the process.

Ummm, your convoluted thinking is ridiculous.

It is funny how people will justify anything, even theft.

My employer once justified theft of software. He felt it was silly to be charged thousands of dollars for applications that would not generate the same revenue in return.

I politely suggested that he purchase it, over time, as one day, he will be audited by some disgruntled employee's complaint to the BSA.

He is now in compliance.

It's stealing. Unless it's freeware.

Let me guess, that disgruntled employee was you. Your boss fired you, and you, knowing that he had unlicensed software, decided to get even with him by ratting him out to BSA.

While the above may or may not be true about you, you'd be surprised about how many employees are looking the other way when their employers are doing something illegal. Then if/when they get fired, all of a sudden they decide to blow a whistle, and not to make their employer pay for breaking the law, but for screw them right back.

The gloves are coming off.

Umm no, your corporation-infested surrealist way of thinking is laughable.

Don't forget, she's in the industry. I would expect anything less from her.

...because?

It's an argument in absurdity. And a valid one at that.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad ··· absurdum
What I think is left out that makes the line clear though is money. If you buy the record, studios don't care if you can recall a song in your head perfectly.

Copyright is such a messy topic. But unfortunately, whoever has their name on a work, says what can be done with that work.
If it weren't for the fact that copyright holders make up one of the wealthiest industries while doing the least real work in society, they would not have problems with piracy because fewer people would feel justified in stealing.

"I'm not buying Hollywood another fleet of BMW's" sums up my attitude..

Then you have the instances where copyright protects the work of the little guys. Like me for instance. I am a photographer and published writer. I have caught 3 publications using my work without my consent in the last 7 years. It is times like that when I am happy copyright exists.

The fact of the matter is that as owner of the writing/photography work, I am entitled to the right for distribution. If I choose to not distribute it, then that is my right. If another company uses my work without my consent, that is copyright infringement.

Aside from the RIAA and MPAA, there are small software makers getting ripped off as well as small bands who do not want their work distibuted over the internet for free. Who fights for them? What rights do they have for protecting their work?

There are some laws that need to be rewritten thats for sure, but there also needs to be some rights given to those who own the material and very strict punishments given to those who break it. Especially for profit.

"Who fights for them? What rights do they have for protecting their work?"

-Puts on red suit and horns-

Who fights for any of us in protecting our work? No one. Most of us dont have any special rights to the work we do, so consider yourself lucky. It's not wise to throw rocks in a glass house. It might shatter around you and then where would you be?

Wny, down here with the rest of us on grub worker drone boulevard.

"The fact of the matter is that as owner of the writing/photography work, I am entitled to the right for distribution. If I choose to not distribute it, then that is my right. If another company uses my work without my consent, that is copyright infringement."

As if you wouldn't be deleriously happy that someone would WANT to use your work (and, of course, pay you...And pay you) to begin with. I'm sure you're going to refuse to let them.

And, what if someone who is using your work without your permission says screw you when you demand your cut? It's only your "right" when you can enforce it. And, chances are it would cost you more to try to enforce it than what you never lost, or would have gained, because you weren't paid, to begin with. To even try to assert "your right" costs you money right out of the box.

"There are some laws that need to be rewritten thats for sure, but there also needs to be some rights given to those who own the material and very strict punishments given to those who break it. Especially for profit."

And, here we get to the crux of the matter. It's never enough for this kind. They allways have pockets too deep to fill. Sadly, it's the same with most media people. They can babble on about any inane subject and then copyright it. It's a sweet deal, really...

I'm sure you'd have the laws re written in the most draconian manner you could, with prison sentences for the most minor infraction of your "rights" (so you didn't have to spend any money suing. Just let the government prosecute and waste the taxpayers money in a allready overburdened legal system).

And, I'm sure you'd have a whole legal volume filled up with your "Rights" and the punishment for infringing them without coughing up some cash (as much as you decide to demand). Of course, again making the criminal system do it so it costs you nothing. Sounds like rich mans nirvana to me.

Of course, the trouble with the criminal system is that it would be a really LOW priority on the totem pole of crime and, just try to make the miscreants pay once they have served their time in whatever form.

Sadly, you'd also price yourself right out of the market. Just like the Motion picture and music recording industries are now in their endless greedy grubbing for cash. When it gets to be too much of a hassle to use copyrighted works (or, too expensive, overall) one of two things will happen.

Either the copyright laws will be gutted, or, people will start saying "screw you, sue me". And, you cant possibly sue them all, as the RIAA/MPAA has been finding out. What do you do then?

Most likely the result would be some combination of the two but it would be interesting to see, I'm sure.

Too bad DRM doesn't work because you cant DRM plain old analog.

-Removes horns and red suit, smiles evilly-

Without quoting your entire post Fatal Vector, let me make a few points here.

First off, every published writer and photographer, software writer, musician, and so on has intellectual property rights. These are special rights for the work that we do. Sure, if you know a trade like working in a computer department or being a call center agent, then you don't have intellectual property rights. I fail to see your arguement here at all other than pointing out that not everyone has these rights, and that is the way it should be.

Sure, I am happy when someone calls to use my work. I am also equally happy to cash the check when it comes in. I have also been known to give the rights to my work away for non profit organizations or special publications in certain situations. The point is, it is my right all the time. If I want to enforce it or not is my preference. Same goes for a software maker who decides to write a piece of software and then hand it out to a specific company to use and not charge them anything for it. Thats his right.

As for enforcing that right, I have done that 2 times and it is quite easy to do in a court of law. Costing me more to enforce it? Hardly. Having won twice and not having it cost me a cent and getting back a lot more than I would have charged, I know what it takes. Anyone with intellectual property rights to something has the ability to enforce these kinds of things. You obviously havent done this before so you don't know what the heck you are talking about.

I love how you label me a greedy when in fact I just want payment for my time spent, but I digress...

If I could have laws rewritten, I wouldn't use jail time as a motivator. The way you motivate people who break the law like this is with fines and court costs. The fines obviously going back to the person who has the rights to the property.

Its obvious that you don't know much about enforcing intellectual property rights, and it is also obvious that you don't have any intellectual property rights of your own to enforce. Therefore, you feel the need to bash those of us who do make a living off of intellectual property rights. I guess you can't show someone the other side of the situation so easily. Especailly when they have their head up their ass.

Ahhh..problem with that is..that..this money goes to pay for court costs...plus profit for the government.etc, etc..you'd be lucky to get a dime for every $100 fine.

Whatever the case...I can see the point for 'the little' guy. You..being 'the little' guy..I'm sure..isn't going to be nearly as restrictive when you sell your work.

The system screws everyone over...

Which is why the system needs a serious makeover.

This is why I say that it's a messy topic.

People that work hard for work that reaches a small audience deserve all of the protection the law can afford.

I think my problem with massively reproduced works is that mutli million dollar opening nights are out of touch with decency. Also it's sometimes strikingly apparent that the art in them is not that great, but that studios place such powerful tools (such as great actors, amazing cgi, massive marketing campaigns) in between the hands of "artists" and the viewing eyes of the public.

In an ideal world, inspiration and hard work would be rewarded and brute influence would be a dream.

Vice versa works for me however. I don't have to buy what I don't like. I've spent more on books than movies and music combined and by a wide margin at that.

Nightfall, you post is my whole point. If people on here had their work stolen (say paycheck stolen), they would be the first to complain.

They see copyright infringing behavior as a "victimless" crime.

Bootlegging a concert before the Net was fun. But, now it can be put on the Net and downloaded by millions stealing money away from a DVD.

Some bands allow recording. I know that U2 doesn't anymore since they are going to tape theirs and sell them on iTunes. U2, among others, even shut down fansites devoted to them that listed all their lyrics.

So, which orifice did you pull that figure out of?

At any rate, there are several reasons for which people would rather download from a source other than iTunes:

• unencumbered: nothing like having to rip to other media just so you can make a copy for your other MP3 (etc.) players
  
• Price: at 99¢ a song, it's a freaking rip-off. I can buy a 17-song CD for about the same price as 17 iTunes files. At least with the store-bought CD, I didn't have to spend money on media and bandwidth. Plus, with the store-bought CD, I get all the nifty extras that come with hard-copy media
  
• consumer disgust: In other words, not wanting to support the lawyerist, scorched-earth *AA groups. After all, does it REALLY make sense that the online retailer makes like 5¢ and the artist makes maybe 10¢ out of the 99¢ selling price?
  
• Selection: take all the different online stores together and combine their libraries, and it's still but a fraction of what you can find on non "legitimate" music sources.
  

Give the consumers the selection they want in an easily portable format for a sensible price and they will tend to buy rather than turn to other sources.

-tom

There's more dollar spent now than ever for multimedia content, so I'd say that we're paying, and more than before. I think the artists wouldn't really like it if people would spend less in multimedia spendings to go back to their "parents" level.

As to the money artists earn, it's mostly based on fame. The more famous they are, the richer they are. Now, the more pirated they are, the most famous they are. This is in line with what happens in the industry. The more a work is pirated, the more it sold, if you check the RIAA figures.

Really, I've seen plenty of stories about people getting busted here... including dead grandma's, little kids, college kids (who probably should know better), and the list goes on...

The BBR article here says that there are already copies of most anything out there, which you also agree is a pretty much given... Therefore, the use of DRM doesn't exist to stop people from putting out stuff on the web, it exists so that nobody can copy it to anything, because, who would want to? who could do anything with it? Nobody. Not even the intended purchaser in some cases, which just creates headaches for everyone... have you read about the new Zune DRM??? Even more confusion.

Granted, it sort of works, but it's basically flawed. Sure, iTunes lets you make a real cd, or put it on an ipod, but that's it. Sure, Rhapsody lets you have "to go" (for $5 more a month?) but it's plagued with a ton of issues on different players, and then you have to renew your tracks, some of which might just mysteriously vanish from the service

And I have a hard time imagining that 90% of bit torrent traffic is purely illegal. What about the thousands and thousands of people sharing LEGAL tapings of concerts??? Surely this still accounts for a large chunk. In fact, if you've ever read up on it, that's why ol' Bram made the thing up in the 1st place, and it works great for sharing LEGAL tapings of concerts.
Also, just to consider, what if that tape you had from some obscure shop years and years ago, that's hiding in a box somewhere, had a great b-side of a band you loved, but there were no cd available? Somebody out there likely made it available. ...So what about the ton of folks seeking the obscure and causing zero harm to artists or labels???
Granted, that's a minority, especially with the explosion in popularity, but it's a thing to consider...

Anyway, agreed that the Russian site is crap, see my post below...

Agreed that people should pay the piper, but telling people to do it like their folks did is laughable. If anything, we're getting BETTER deals when we pay for it than they did (except for inflated cd prices). ...See EMUSIC... ...See Rhapsody...

Thank you

Taping a concert is called bootlegging, which is illegal and a violation of your ticket if you've ever read it.

Another utter BS - do you actually know anything?

It's subject to the local venue's rules.

I've been several concerts when you could not only bring your own camcorder and record it but the venue provided your place in a special 'booth' and audio hookup to get perfect quality, synced audio - all in return for the copy you gave them, royalty-free.

thank you kamm.

I do not support illegal bootlegging of shows, nor would I download, or upload such a thing.

Yes, rachelsfx, it can be illegal, and some venues/bands state that no such thing is to occur. Sometimes it's out of their hands. The venue might disallow it, or have certain restrictions...
Sometimes it isn't.
Guess what, whatever the case, tapers seem to generally respect those limitations and follow the artist's/venue's wishes.

I've also purchased shows, straight from the artist's sites. It's awesome.

for instance::: »bootlegs.pearljam.com

They also do a MUCH better job recording becuase they can take ALL the tracks and then mix/master it. VERY worth the money for such a recording and memory of the show. I even generally pay extra for FLAC's... with no DRM.

hint: No DRM = no restriction on my FAIR USE of purchased recordings... I can play them in my home stereo, car, portable, etc. and I do not share my files! Why would I??? I just PAID for them, so I see no reason so give it away. This is called Honesty, which also involves a certain level of Trust (which works both ways!).

Therein lies the biggest problem with DRM, it inherently instills DIS-trust in the user.

If a LEGAL recording exists for another show, that wasn't made available via the band themselves, I might consider checking it out. Usually the quality sucks, but it's worth a listen just to hear how they did, what songs were played, or the sheer pleasure of hearing a favorite band play.

I was merely pointing out that it's ONE main reason why bit torrent was created in the 1st place by Mr. Cohen.

For reference, here's ONE site which lists bands who allow taping of their shows...
»www.answers.com/topic/li ··· ormances

It's enlightening.

Bootlegging -- that is, the unauthorized fixation of a performance -- was not illegal until _very_ recently; it was made so by a law bought and paid for by the recording industry. Why should anyone have any respect for that law?

Mwhahaha, now you just showed your real colors - this is exactly what Hollywood wants: trun the wheel of time back. Back to those times when technology was restricted to an elite, when masses were nothing but 'receivers' of the mass-media, created by artists but selected, duplicated, distributed and sold exclusively by parasites aka big studios, in a totally bloodsucking, leech-like manner.

Those times ARE GONE, thanks for the technology. You either adapt or DIE.

I can't wait for the day when these useless, absolutely unnecessary parasites, the MIDDLEMEN will disappear. Ah that'll be a sunny day...

The Communist Manifesto as interpreted by kamm.

Not so much Communist Manifesto as a dying business format struggling to stay relevant. Personally, I don't think that the middlemen will disappear. However, the middlemen of the "new" business format won't resemble anything like the middlemen of the "old" format.

Currently, the middlemen (labels) actually take on the role of owner. When an artist signs with them, they lose all control of the copyrights of their material. The labels get to dictate what the artists do and when they do it and how much they make doing it. Then, when the artists have made money, the labels take out huge chunks for questionable expenses (along with valid ones) until the artist is left with virtually nothing left.

I think the new middlemen (labels) will be more like ad agencies. Band X will create a set of new songs to sell on iTunes/mySpace/CD Shops/where ever. They will then hire Label Y to promote them. Label Y will get a cut of the CD sales during the contract period (thus giving an added incentive for the label to do a good job), but the copyright will belong to Band X. If Band X doesn't like how Label Y is treating them, they will ditch Label Y and go with Label Z instead.

All you need is a good central location for artists to sell their wares directly to the public. Possibly iTunes, but with added features to help labels and bands work together.

Wrong!
the xxAAs want you to PAY for a new copy for each player you have.
They also want you to use the original until it is so scratched/broken you have to go buy another copy.

Fair Use is being able to COPY the CD/DVD and use the "WORKING COPY" for normal use... while keeping the original pristine in a closet or somewhere.

This irks the xAAs!

Well, Screw Them!
I have the ability to copy ANYTHING! I store the originals and use the copies(hence the term - Working Copy).

Sorry friend(s), I will continue doing my media as I have from the start! Make the copy and use it until it's toast.
Then, I will toss it and merely copy the original and burn another.

I love my VAIO!
It copies Sony DVDs with Sony provided software! Ironic, huh?

YMMV.

If "the man" makes a reasonable action into a felony, he's asking for a good sticking-to.Wrong. DRM in popular media goes back as far as Macrovision for VCR tapes, and in the digital domain to DVDs. That's before illegal downloads. With computer software, it was more honestly called "copy protection" and also pre-dates illegal downloads in that realm.AllofMP3.com is legal where it operates, because The Man says it is. If you think it's wrong regardless, you must admit that legality is not the foundation of morality.

Rachel, illegal MP3 downloads started way before the legal ones did, so people were forced to download illegally. Then when the legal downloads DID come out, they were bloated with DRM-like crap right from the start. If someone (iTunes, Napster, whoever) started offering completely DRM-crap free downloads, it would spread like wildfire.