White House wants new copyright laws.

[Ashmada]

Ya me caring about pillars of democracy from the other end totally makes me against the innocent people stealing shit. Don't be stupid. We have rights just as much as you do. Democracy isn't just for the whiny.

Wait, what?

I find myself greatly puzzled, here.

When have I said anything about "innocent people stealing shit"? The field of strawmen is over there.
How does "we have rights too" relate to anything I wrote or, as a matter of fact, anything in this thread? Do you have any cognitive capacity? Who's out for your rights? Who's, as you mentionned in an earlier tirade, threatening your husband's privacy?

The pertinence of that random ad hominem at the end also escapes me.

I can only see 2 possibilities: either you're utterly retarded or you were so enraged writing that (the anger does transpire) you forgot to put meaning in there.
Hopefully, it's the latter; we'll see.

tl;dr - Isn't the worst part of this supposed to be the fact that they're wanting to wiretap people who they suspect of piracy? I mean what the fuck, the music/movie/television industries don't want to change their business model to reflect a change in technology, so people's lives and privacy (and often their family's and/or friends, simply for being their family or friend) are both being destroyed? I don't care if people are for or against internet downloading, for or against "piracy", that's fucked up, period.

Is what I've been trying to convey. Rather ineffectually, it seems.

[Yugl]

You know, there is virtually no empirical data on how piracy effects the profits on the film industry.

For obvious fucking reasons.

[Plow]

worth reading.

no, sorry, arguing that it being available for pirating sooner than it's available on netflix etc. makes pirating ok is retarded

[guartz]

no, sorry, arguing that it being available for pirating sooner than it's available on netflix etc. makes pirating ok is retarded

they call that demand.

[Plow]

as to this:

Like I said, I'd definitely pay a fee to have access to a more extensive streaming library than Netflix, so that I had no reason to pirate something just because I couldn't rent it locally or stream it online legitimately (and having to wait a couple days for the latest Netflix movie to get sent back, then a couple more days for Rocky 1 to show up because the Redboxes nearby don't have it and they don't have it available to stream for whatever retarded reason isn't good enough). As it stands, I can download a movie in 20~30 minutes, a television show in less (or more if I'm downloading a full season), and watch them in HD. But I'd rather be legit and have advertising mixed into it like on Hulu, or pay a monthly fee to be able to avoid the advertising.

Amazon now offers unlimited free streaming of a ton of movies, although it's still pretty limited just like Netflix. It's only for prime members though, which is like $90 for a year. They also have huge amounts of streaming movies to rent that aren't available free yet, although they're a bit overpriced still.

Point being, there's now direct competition in that market, and what you're asking for is well on its way.

You're simply being impatient and greedy about a luxury that you've convinced yourself you have a right to.

[Plow]

they call that demand.

and if he didn't pirate, one of those 4 times he watched pirates between theatres and buying it, he might have paid to go see it again in a theatre

you know, the legit supply line

[guartz]

You know whats gonna happen right? The demand for cheap entertainment is not gonna go away. With higher enforcement it will just become more exclusive, and pirating will become profitable again. Bootleg dvds! I could use the extra cash.

[Plow]

right, the record companies can't beat free pirates, but bootleggers will for sure

[guartz]

I'm suddenly all for it now. Let's do it big man, we can call it "The War on Pirates!" ... fuck yeah, petition your representative today!

[Kuya]

These pirates are criminals, on the high seas.

[guartz]

Yes, plow's alias is suddenly suspect now. He has been spending a lot of time on the random image forum, enjoying for free all those copyright pictures. VERY suspect.

[guartz]

holeeey shit. I just mimicked the thoughts of a google CEO without realizing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi3Q40EPUjk

[Yugl]

holeeey shit. I just mimicked the thoughts of a google CEO without realizing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi3Q40EPUjk

So first you defend pirating and now you plagiarize?

[gdshdsh]

The real solution is to make everything available for free.

If you had the option of watching BD quality movies for free, with 2-5 minutes of commercials, would you still pirate it, just to save those few minutes on commercials? Probably not.

Dirt cheap streaming via netflix already puts a hamper on piracy. I mean why would anyone feel the need to pirate a movie when they can get all the movies they want for a few $ a month? Well, maybe because the quality isn't as great as it could be.

Well, that's easily solved, and would even lower costs. Use torrents. Why aren't there already companies doing this? They can push the bandwidth costs onto the users, while increasing download speeds significantly, allowing them to cheaply stream BD quality movies. Did i mention it would be cheaper?

Of course cheaper doesn't mean anything to someone like cream soda, with a budget of $0. Well, once distribution costs are cut 80%, i'm sure it'd be more than viable to offer a free service, supported by advertisements.

As soon as these companies realize they can compete with piracy, and offer their products to the consumers for free, and still make profits (sup newpapers, radio, etc), we won't hear about this shit anymore, because it's worth a minute or two of our time to watch a commercial to support the companies that are providing us with our entertainment.

[guartz]

So first you defend pirating and now you plagiarize?

Ah, I lol'd.

[Yugl]

and still make profits (sup newpapers, radio, etc), we won't hear about this shit anymore, because it's worth a minute or two of our time to watch a commercial to support the companies that are providing us with our entertainment.

I loled too.

[NynJa]

fucking lol at the amount of stupid in here. Actors / Musicians dont really care about piracy that much. The only musicians that really give a fuck are the ones who get a major cut based on album sales, or cut out the middle man and are their own record label. Same with actors, they get paid based on DOING the movie, and they get a couple extra bonuses based on how it does. Tom Cruise, I think, is one of the only ones who care, because he gets epic deals based on how his movies do in both theaters, as well as rentals / retail sales. I dont know, I could be wrong.

I do know though that musicians get most of their money from touring and merch sales, as well as sponsorships. Album sales are just a pretty number...but wont do a damn thing as far as money goes for them, all those album sales go to the record label. Thats why you dont see bands crying about piracy, they dont care...in fact piracy exposes them to new ears since people who wouldn't normally buy their album can actually hear their music.

[gdshdsh]

Right, plenty of bands actually encourage piracy.

[Fieros]

Wow Elrina, amazing post! Definately worth the read as others have mentioned.

Spoiler: show

There are, whether anybody likes to admit it or not, a ton of arguments both for and against "internet piracy".

For instance, not all forms of copyright or IP should be considered equal. Art is not the same as a book, which isn't the same as a movie, which isn't the same as a television show, which isn't the same as a video game, and when each is "pirated" it effects it's industry and author differently. The quality of the product, and whether or not it's an individual author or a small company or a large corporation changes each as well.

Copying stuff online effects everything differently, and whether it's any good or not also plays into it. Yes, you can call downloading something without paying for it stealing, technically. But just like there are a lot of people who don't know how easy it is, there are a lot of people (imo) who don't even realize it's an issue, who don't even think about it, it's just a part of the way things are. Entertainment on the internet is free, and this and every other argument, discussion, and debate aside, every new law and every individual prosecuted aside, entertainment on the internet is most likely going to stay free. They press harder, we find better ways to go anonymous when downloading. I remember when bittorrent first showed up and the splash it made.

Is downloading wallpapers on the internet for free illegal? As often as not, probably, but with all the image boards and websites giving them away for free, the average person would be hard pressed to even be able to find out whether or not there's a copyright attached to a specific random picture if they wanted to.

And copying movies/television, and streaming them, can effect them in different ways. I have a Netflix subscription, and it's a good idea, but I think the delay for new discs and the crappy library available for streaming is dumb. I would pay a little more, or pay for Hulu Plus, or whatever, if the service offered a reliable way to stream media without a huge delay involved. I'm talking like next day on television shows, and a week of disc release for movies. As it stands, they still value the product too highly, so I continue to pirate what I can't find on Netflix or in any local Redboxes, and buy only a select number of the movies I actually rent, stuff I specifically want to support.

Brandon Sanderson offers a copy of Warbreaker for free on his website. He made it available, for free, as he wrote it, and right up to the published edit is available for free online. I still bought a copy for myself, and a couple more copies as gifts for friends, because it's a damn good book and he's a damn good author and I'll pay for whatever he makes available.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this study, as it's pretty relevant. [link]

Piracy's effect on sales, even when it obviously does have one (and there are instances it does), is still only theoretical at best, because it can't be proven that the people who pirate didn't also pay to see the movie, or buy it, or did neither, and arguing that every time it's watched is real money lost is just stupid. I saw the first Pirates of the Caribbean in theaters twice, I also pirated it and watched it at home like four times before the DVD was released, and then bought it on DVD and it's sitting on a shelf next to me. It also doesn't show the numerous reasons why it may have or may not have. If it's a shitty movie, piracy/renting will likely just make the overall box office and DVD sales drop lower because it's a shitty movie. If it's something like The Game of Thrones on HBO, HBO should make it available on their website, either with advertising to stream or a small fee to download, so that people aren't forced to pay for an HBO package just to watch it, and their only other recourse to "pirate" it. Generally when something is good, people who enjoy it are willing to pay a little bit to enjoy/support it, if given a legitimate and reasonable way to do so.




I want to specifically respond to your example of the old school photographer upgrading to digital to "speed up the workflow", which basically means to make more money from being able to do more business faster, easier, and cheaper. Yes, the business model worked with the previous level of technology, and no, it doesn't inherently deserve to remain viable when the technology enabling it becomes outdated. Why should a maker of content become able to do their end of it faster, easier, and cheaper, and yet not change their business model to make it faster, easier and cheaper to access for the consumer as well? They don't have a fundamental right to make more money as technology progresses, while everyone else is required to continue paying the same rate. It isn't just "that guy" that made his previously solid business plan no longer sustainable, it was the changeover to digital, the new technology, that made it inherently less viable to maintain. Change or die, it's a fact of life, and corporations need to learn that just like individuals are forced to.

Business models need to change. Advertising needs to be considered. Monthly subscriptions making large libraries of content (like Netflix) need to be made available so that people are able to access what they want, when they want, yet have a legitimate way of doing so without having to pay a premium to "own" a copy. Blockbuster charged a lot of money for renting movies for a lot of years, then came along Netflix, and then Redbox, and now they're practically bankrupt (if they aren't already). And the MPAA threw a fit, because Redbox and Netflix were affecting DVD sales, because people would rather pay $1~ or a small monthly fee to rent their movies then buy all of them. And even if they liked buying movies, that made it possible to find out if they actually wanted to buy them or not, and they realized that they didn't want to buy all of them. That's why there's something like a 28~ day delay before Redbox gets movies from certain studios, and there's been an ongoing lawsuit regarding it, because it wasn't enough that it was a legal venue for us to access the media, it was impacting their bottom line anyway and thus it needed to be stopped or slowed down.

This is about streaming. It's about their bottom line. It's about them wanting to be able to take advantage of new tech to make things cheaper for them, or spend money like it's water on another Michael Bay movie, and still recoup their money whether the movie is good or bad by charging us the same, if not more. There have been real examples of movies that were hugely popular, made crazy amounts of money, and yet were also pirated on an enormous scale.

People, and especially corporations, don't have a fundamental right to make whatever they want and still be able to recoup their expenses and make a profit simply by keeping people ignorant of the value of the product before they pay for it. With art as an example, since that seems to be your field, if I want a signed print of Michael Whelan's art for the cover of The Way of Kings, I know I'm going to have to pay $95 for it, but I also know exactly what I'm paying for before I do so.




Giving away an infinite number of physical copies of something damages it's monetary value. Giving away an infinite number of digital copies of a digital product affects it's value in a completely different way, based on how it's distributed, what it costs physically (if it's even available physically), and probably a number of other factors not immediately coming to mind. The problem is that the "crime", isn't always considered a crime. Is everyone who download's a copy of Sanderson's Warbreaker committing a crime just because they're getting a free digital copy of something copyrighted and published, despite his allowance of it? If the original authors of something make it available both for free and for a price, is getting it for free a crime simply because it's copyrighted and sold as well? The media industries are torn themselves between artists who embrace this "crime", and those who are against it, and it isn't always as simple as saying "small timers are for it, and successful artists/corporations are against it". How is it a crime, how is the average person supposed to even know the difference, when even the people who generate the media don't all agree on whether or not it's a crime.

Convicting people of a felony, destroying lives, because the "industry" doesn't want to have to change their business models to reflect the changes in technology and culture (of which the internet, and what is available on it, is now a large part of), is stupid.

That doesn't make it right to pirate material, and I'd much rather pay for what I download. But I'd rather pay a reasonable price for something that I know the quality of before I pay for it, because I don't have the money to just drop it on every new thing that comes out whether it's good or not, and in this day and age, I shouldn't have to. Like I said, I'd definitely pay a fee to have access to a more extensive streaming library than Netflix, so that I had no reason to pirate something just because I couldn't rent it locally or stream it online legitimately (and having to wait a couple days for the latest Netflix movie to get sent back, then a couple more days for Rocky 1 to show up because the Redboxes nearby don't have it and they don't have it available to stream for whatever retarded reason isn't good enough). As it stands, I can download a movie in 20~30 minutes, a television show in less (or more if I'm downloading a full season), and watch them in HD. But I'd rather be legit and have advertising mixed into it like on Hulu, or pay a monthly fee to be able to avoid the advertising.


tl;dr - Isn't the worst part of this supposed to be the fact that they're wanting to wiretap people who they suspect of piracy? I mean what the fuck, the music/movie/television industries don't want to change their business model to reflect a change in technology, so people's lives and privacy (and often their family's and/or friends, simply for being their family or friend) are both being destroyed? I don't care if people are for or against internet downloading, for or against "piracy", that's fucked up, period.

[Ksandra]

Your husband isn't gonna lose his shitty minimum wage security guard job because of piracy.

wat?

you know he's a head technical artist for 3-D conversion right?

Wait, what?

I find myself greatly puzzled, here.

you bashed me for pointing out that my husband works in the industry when my only point is there are other sides and the other side isn't just people making millions.