A Chink in Kazaa's Armor? → Re: Piracy is a punch

THe Masked Debater, althought you might have got one thing right, your views are narrow.

"Jaywalking is a victimless crime, designed to protect people from themselves."

Although jaywalking is designed to protect people from themselves, it is also there so that no person walks out into the middle of the road and cause a major accident killing someone else. Guess that is pretty victimless eh?

Think broader before speaking out, famous debater.

And here are some of your quotes:

"But they're accusing people of stealing because they know for a fact people are stealing. They've known it since before the drop in sales, as the filestealing programs have long been a haven for this kind of theft."

"Pirates should be prosecuted, and I'm sure we'll see it happen on a large scale within the next 2 years."

So they know for a long time and yet STILL need to wait 2 years to prosecute. Weird.

However, contrary to what you say, I think they know they can't prosecute because it is too costly for them because they can't get any benefit from suing each person and they don't have enough evidence. It's that simple.

So like I said, instead of doing it the normal way (i.e. prosecute people), they try to get their money back by ancillary means. Whether they succeed or not is another question.

Aoee

As far as victimless crimes, while I could not quote you a specific law, if there is not a separate law against causing an accident, I'll eat my hat, or something else more edible. It's similar to speeding - the national speed limit of 55 MPH was set not for safety concerns, but rather to conserve oil as it's generally the most fuel-efficient speed for a car. Any law against speeding, even if it exists for safety reasons(as school zone or other such limits do) is generally superfluous because of wreckless driving laws that protect others instead of the criminal.

I said within 2 years because I feel that soon enough, they'll figure out that going after the networks is only going to do so much, and they'll have nowhere else to logically attack but to go after the individual pirates. The number is really independent of them having known about piracy for a while, since they've been going after the networks that allow them to do this instead of the people themselves so far.

I just hope I'm right, and they don't keep spinning their wheels for the next 2 years.

"I said within 2 years because I feel that soon enough, they'll figure out that going after the networks is only going to do so much, and they'll have nowhere else to logically attack but to go after the individual pirates."

You mean their logical sequence was first crush p2p or kazaa then prosecute individuals? You've gotta be kidding. From such a statement, you obviously do not know about the history of RIAA and similar associations and their attemtps to protect copyright.

Even before p2p, RIAA and other similar associations around the world have complained about the use of recording devices for copying music (and movies). First, it was tape recorders, VHS then cd burners and now internet networks.

FIRST, these associations knew they are not going to do much if they prosecute individuals. These individuals have no money even if the association won. The resources to undertake such a task is simply not worthwhile.

THEN, that is where they started attacking entities that provide the means for copying to exist. Back in the age of tape recorders, these were the manufacturers of video tapes and tapes. The associations tried to make them pay for a "surcharge" since a portion of these tapes were going to be used as a copy device. Courts of some countries said this was legal and some didn't.

As for your comments such as:

"Any law against speeding, even if it exists for safety reasons(as school zone or other such limits do) is generally superfluous because of wreckless driving laws that protect others instead of the criminal"

shows you have no knowledge on the existence of such laws and such comments are are basically your opinion you created out of your head. This isn't a bad thing but it does go a bit astray as shown by some of your analogies.

"No, of course it doesn't cost $15 to make a CD, but things have to be sold over cost to make a profit. I bet you that a car's sticker price is more than $15 over the cost of making that car. I bet you even when you haggle, as lows as that dealer's willing to go, somebody's still making AT LEAST $15 over cost on that car."

($15 over the cost of a CD. $15 over the cost of a car. Come on. What kind of argument is that.)

As for this quote:

"As far as victimless crimes, while I could not quote you a specific law, if there is not a separate law against causing an accident, I'll eat my hat, or something else more edible."

Congratuations, you don't have to eat your hat since the law against jaywalking is also part of the laws against causing an accident.