The piracy battle

[BigBallinStalin]

A couple years ago, I was dead certain that piracy would win and would force the big producers/retailers to adapt or die. I'm still 90% sure, but all the recent attempts to fundamentally change the nature of the internet have me a bit worried now. Hopefully those in power won't be able to use piracy as a scare tactic to push extremely heavy-handed regulation onto the internet.

What do you guys think about this stuff?

The government is inevitable and stupid. They'll keep pushing for SOPA and PIPA-esque bills every 5-10 years, and eventually the people will get tired of resisting. Or, they'll insert riders into somewhat unrelated bills (e.g. Cybersecurity bills--another unnecessary form of state intervention). However, as long as people can keep innovating around the government and its nonsense, then we'll be fine (except for of course the government wasting our money on that endeavor).

If piracy becomes more rampant and enforcement becomes too ineffective, then I'm hoping that IP laws will be forced to change for the better. Talk about holding back the economy: IP laws are a huge stumbling block, and they're state-mandated. Government intervention which hampers the economy? NO WAY, MAN! Big surprise there!

[BigBallinStalin]

I hate the fact that the internet is trying to make it so I can't just go online as 2dimes anonymously anymore. So I'm not as comfortable talking about embarrassing medical conditions, their effects on dating or other issues surrounding life with small deformed genitalia.

Now Facebook and google plus automatically tries to sign me into everything and I have to go under my real name Reginald P. Snordville III. Then everyone at work knows it's me.

I'm with Reggie. As an internet user, my biggest concern is the apparent lack of anonymity (not realtive to you fools, relative to people who could potentially do annoying or bad things to me).

I am much less concerned with the fight against piracy. In fact, I would generally say I'm on the side of the "bad guy" big companies, writers, musicians, producers, etc. I think there are better ways to do business than how the bad guys are doing business (for example, Netflix), but I have no big problem with suing the living f*ck out of a fuckhole who takes your shit that you spent money and time to produce and puts it on his free webpage. Oh, sorry, did that come off as me hating fucking fuckface pirates?

Lawful good: Willing to uphold the law--even if it is unnecessary, costly, and best to ignore.

[thegreekdog]

I hate the fact that the internet is trying to make it so I can't just go online as 2dimes anonymously anymore. So I'm not as comfortable talking about embarrassing medical conditions, their effects on dating or other issues surrounding life with small deformed genitalia.

Now Facebook and google plus automatically tries to sign me into everything and I have to go under my real name Reginald P. Snordville III. Then everyone at work knows it's me.

I'm with Reggie. As an internet user, my biggest concern is the apparent lack of anonymity (not realtive to you fools, relative to people who could potentially do annoying or bad things to me).

I am much less concerned with the fight against piracy. In fact, I would generally say I'm on the side of the "bad guy" big companies, writers, musicians, producers, etc. I think there are better ways to do business than how the bad guys are doing business (for example, Netflix), but I have no big problem with suing the living f*ck out of a fuckhole who takes your shit that you spent money and time to produce and puts it on his free webpage. Oh, sorry, did that come off as me hating fucking fuckface pirates?

Lawful good: Willing to uphold the law--even if it is unnecessary, costly, and best to ignore.

I suspect you think you're being chaotic good, which is probably the problem here, right? You're probably more chaotic evil. I'm not concerned with upholding the law. You've seemed to ignore my concern, so I'll type it again (differently this time). I'm concerned with protecting the works that someone spent time, effort, and money preparing. Those people should receive some form of compensation. There is an exchange. I write a book, you pay money to read it. Unfortunately, piracy results in... I write a book, you pay nothing to read it. Therefore, my time, effort, and money were wasted so why should I write another book?

Maybe I should create a thread about the "property battle" and wonder why it's not okay for me to take BBS's car without compensating him in some way. I mean we have all these unnecessary laws that are costly to enforce that prevent me from having BBS's car.

[thegreekdog]

By the way... anyone who is with the pirates on this one, please tell me where your valuables are and I will come take them from you.

And for whatever it's worth, I'm with crispy and FT - the companies should not use a clumsy tool like internet regulation to get what they want. They need to use the court system and for the current laws to be enforced.

[AndyDufresne]

Can I get in on the D&D stuff? Where do I fall on the spectrum? Recall, I'm mostly interested in Futurama and Star Trek and bananas.


--Andy

[Funkyterrance]

I write a book, you pay money to read it. Unfortunately, piracy results in... I write a book, you pay nothing to read it. Therefore, my time, effort, and money were wasted so why should I write another book?

It's interesting that you bring up the book example because from what I understand sites like Abebooks really piss off some authors because their books are just getting passed on from one reader to the next, drastically affecting sales(If your book get's re-sold 3 times you are making 1/3rd the amount you would otherwise). This mostly applies to textbooks and instructional stuff but still, are you going to make a rule about re-selling books? It's really tough and more to try and stop piracy retroactively(legally) and you must continue doing it to instill fear in would-be pirates. The best way is to make the media harder to copy in the first place, curbing illegal distribution.

[thegreekdog]

I write a book, you pay money to read it. Unfortunately, piracy results in... I write a book, you pay nothing to read it. Therefore, my time, effort, and money were wasted so why should I write another book?

It's interesting that you bring up the book example because from what I understand sites like Abebooks really piss off some authors because their books are just getting passed on from one reader to the next, drastically affecting sales(If your book get's re-sold 3 times you are making 1/3rd the amount you would otherwise). This mostly applies to textbooks and instructional stuff but still, are you going to make a rule about re-selling books? It's really tough and more to try and stop piracy retroactively(legally) and you must continue doing it to instill fear in would-be pirates. The best way is to make the media harder to copy in the first place, curbing illegal distribution.

Yeah, maybe I am not explaining myself well. I'm not in favor of creating additional laws. I'm in favor of enforcing the laws we have. It appears that some people in this thread do not think we should enforce the laws we have.

[2dimes]

I don't agree with it but I understand. It's the only way to deter us.

Our buddy goes to jail for downloading curb Your Enthusiasm and we think, "Whoa, I'm not going to do that."

Prior to we thought, "Awesome! Free stuff."

I think the point is deterrence doesn't work, unless taken to ridiculous extremes. (and you can't take it to those extremes without trampling all sorts of other things like internet anonymity).

What they need to do is adapt so that for the majority it's not worth it to go to the hassle of downloading the stuff.

This isn't new. Same thing happened with bootleg physical CDs, bootleg vhs, etc etc. Hell, there probably were similar arguments about the invention of TV (won't it kill the cinema?) and even the invention of the cinema and recording technology(won't it kill live performance?)

This post is super happy fun ichiban! Domo.

[Haggis_McMutton]

By the way... anyone who is with the pirates on this one, please tell me where your valuables are and I will come take them from you.

And for whatever it's worth, I'm with crispy and FT - the companies should not use a clumsy tool like internet regulation to get what they want. They need to use the court system and for the current laws to be enforced.

I'm not with the pirates. However, I'll side with the pirates over the people trying to destroy the internet because they are unable to adapt to a technological innovation.

In other debates you seem to take a very pragmatic stance, so it's somewhat odd to see you take what appears to be a moral "stealing is wrong and should be punished" stance here. My point has been that piracy cannot be stopped via prosecution without granting some entity extraordinary powers over the internet. We can discuss the morality of it all day, but without such excessive force it's simply not gonna be stopped in a court of law. And if such excessive force is used, a big can of worms will be opened both for us and for the people using it ("pirate parties" will become a lot more popular for one thing).

Also, and this is less important, but please don't equate an aussie downloading game of thrones cause he really has no reasonable way of obtaining it outside of the extortionate hbo cable subscription with a guy breaking into a house and stealing a TV. Yes they're both stealing but acting like they're interchangeable is dishonest at best.
Just to make rds happy: oatmeal comic

[Haggis_McMutton]

I write a book, you pay money to read it. Unfortunately, piracy results in... I write a book, you pay nothing to read it. Therefore, my time, effort, and money were wasted so why should I write another book?

It's interesting that you bring up the book example because from what I understand sites like Abebooks really piss off some authors because their books are just getting passed on from one reader to the next, drastically affecting sales(If your book get's re-sold 3 times you are making 1/3rd the amount you would otherwise). This mostly applies to textbooks and instructional stuff but still, are you going to make a rule about re-selling books? It's really tough and more to try and stop piracy retroactively(legally) and you must continue doing it to instill fear in would-be pirates. The best way is to make the media harder to copy in the first place, curbing illegal distribution.

The thing is, they haven't really been able to find a solution that makes the media significantly harder to copy without also being a major pain in the ass for the people actually buying the stuff. As such we reach the ridiculous situation where, when buying the thing you have to jump through 5 hoops and watch an unskipable 2 minute clip about how piracy is the worst crime ever, but when pirating the thing you can just get directly to the content.

Anyway, I agree that one side of the coin is to try making it hard to copy, but it will always be harder to create a defense than to bypass it. The more important aspect of the solution seems to require the change of the business model of the content producers so that they can be competitive with the pirates. After all, many people would rather pay a couple bucks and sit through a couple adverts to get the media hassle free rather than having to track through torrent sites, warez, penis enlargement adverts and so on.
We've already seen that this reduces piracy by changing the incentive structure(eg: link in OP).

[AndyDufresne]

The more important aspect of the solution seems to require the change of the business model of the content producers so that they can be competitive with the pirates.

This made me think of all the Criterion Collection films. I am sucker for classic and foreign films, and there are a lot of bad restorations and copies out there (free and nominally priced). But their quality suffers so much, that if I do end up buying such a film, I choose a Criterion Collection version since I know the quality will be worth it, in addition to the extra bonus materials they provide as well.

After all, many people would rather pay a couple bucks and sit through a couple adverts to get the media hassle free rather than having to track through torrent sites, warez, penis enlargement adverts and so on.
We've already seen that this reduces piracy by changing the incentive structure(eg: link in OP).

This is me generally.

On a semi-related note: The advent of downloadable games (drm-free like gog.com or drm-enforced like steam) has made my purchases easier, and in fact I've probably bought a few games I wouldn't have necessarily gone to a store and bought as well. I don't really see myself ever pirating a game (though to be honest, I've only ever done it a couple of times in all my years).

I don't know where I am going with any of my points.


--Andy

[2dimes]

That oatmeal comic was a bit awesome but the fake ads at the torrent site were perfect. "Punch a grizzly... Moar testicles."

[Funkyterrance]

Yeah, maybe I am not explaining myself well. I'm not in favor of creating additional laws. I'm in favor of enforcing the laws we have. It appears that some people in this thread do not think we should enforce the laws we have.

Yeah I feel a combination of change of format combined with cracking down on the biggest pirates would do just fine. I just feel that the digital format of movies and stuff these days is too easy for your everyday person to steal and therefore harder to deal with legally. Like, you can't practically prosecute one third of the internet population, etc.. Changing formats would make it so that the only people who would really seriously invest in pirating were those who were re-selling and that sort of thing and you could nail them. Anyway, we obviously catch each others drifts and ultimately agree that pirating sucks.

[BigBallinStalin]

I hate the fact that the internet is trying to make it so I can't just go online as 2dimes anonymously anymore. So I'm not as comfortable talking about embarrassing medical conditions, their effects on dating or other issues surrounding life with small deformed genitalia.

Now Facebook and google plus automatically tries to sign me into everything and I have to go under my real name Reginald P. Snordville III. Then everyone at work knows it's me.

I'm with Reggie. As an internet user, my biggest concern is the apparent lack of anonymity (not realtive to you fools, relative to people who could potentially do annoying or bad things to me).

I am much less concerned with the fight against piracy. In fact, I would generally say I'm on the side of the "bad guy" big companies, writers, musicians, producers, etc. I think there are better ways to do business than how the bad guys are doing business (for example, Netflix), but I have no big problem with suing the living f*ck out of a fuckhole who takes your shit that you spent money and time to produce and puts it on his free webpage. Oh, sorry, did that come off as me hating fucking fuckface pirates?

Lawful good: Willing to uphold the law--even if it is unnecessary, costly, and best to ignore.

I suspect you think you're being chaotic good, which is probably the problem here, right? You're probably more chaotic evil. I'm not concerned with upholding the law. You've seemed to ignore my concern, so I'll type it again (differently this time). I'm concerned with protecting the works that someone spent time, effort, and money preparing. Those people should receive some form of compensation. There is an exchange. I write a book, you pay money to read it. Unfortunately, piracy results in... I write a book, you pay nothing to read it. Therefore, my time, effort, and money were wasted so why should I write another book?

It's not (1) either you make absolutely no money, or (2) you make money. It's on the margin. Also, if someone copies your book into digital format, and if your book becomes are a big (free) hit on the internet, then that's all FREE advertising. Since sales are on the margin, you'll make some from people who want the book, some from people who want the legal ebook, and none from people who spread your name. Since your name is hopefully out there, then you'll get more opportunities to get paid for making speeches, giving lectures, etc.

Similar arguments to yours were brought against paperback books, legal digital media, cinema v. TV, etc.. It turns out that such arguments were groundless. They were slippery slope arguments of exceedingly fantastic consequences.

Maybe I should create a thread about the "property battle" and wonder why it's not okay for me to take BBS's car without compensating him in some way. I mean we have all these unnecessary laws that are costly to enforce that prevent me from having BBS's car.

So, here's the problem with IP law.

Let's set it for 10 years on copyrights, patents, whatever. Let's assume that the best balance.

How does the political process distort those 10 years? Well, through rent-seeking, businesses get to expand that limit. If you examine the history of IP law, you'll see the time extension increasing from roughly 10-20 years to 80+.

Do you think there's a problem with that?

I do, and I see piracy as an avenue of resistance against that political process because the legal means for inducing change to that law seem bleak and costly. The entire "nexus" of IP law serves as a (a) high start-up cost for new entrepreneurs, (b) a legal beatings ground against new start-ups by entrenched businesses, which (c) limit competition and innovation, thus hampering the economy.

So, if given the choice between No IP law, and status quo, then I'd opt for No IP law. We could argue about some number in between those two options, and I could see us agreeing on 10-20 years for the various products, but the issue of rent-seeking remains. So what do? (I say, continue with the piracy until the rent-seekers surrender and instead opt for becoming more competitive, innovative, and valuable to consumers. It's on them to woo pirates to become consumers.).

[thegreekdog]

By the way... anyone who is with the pirates on this one, please tell me where your valuables are and I will come take them from you.

And for whatever it's worth, I'm with crispy and FT - the companies should not use a clumsy tool like internet regulation to get what they want. They need to use the court system and for the current laws to be enforced.

I'm not with the pirates. However, I'll side with the pirates over the people trying to destroy the internet because they are unable to adapt to a technological innovation.

In other debates you seem to take a very pragmatic stance, so it's somewhat odd to see you take what appears to be a moral "stealing is wrong and should be punished" stance here. My point has been that piracy cannot be stopped via prosecution without granting some entity extraordinary powers over the internet. We can discuss the morality of it all day, but without such excessive force it's simply not gonna be stopped in a court of law. And if such excessive force is used, a big can of worms will be opened both for us and for the people using it ("pirate parties" will become a lot more popular for one thing).

Also, and this is less important, but please don't equate an aussie downloading game of thrones cause he really has no reasonable way of obtaining it outside of the extortionate hbo cable subscription with a guy breaking into a house and stealing a TV. Yes they're both stealing but acting like they're interchangeable is dishonest at best.
Just to make rds happy: oatmeal comic

I think I probably flew off the handle a little because this discussion bothers me. I'll try to be clearer.

I'm not with the companies either. I think there is an appropriate way to go about protecting one's works, whether through the current law and court system, or, if that's not enough, through some internet regulation without the "destruction of the internet" by ham-fisted politicians. I think there is overreaction from the internet community who support the availability of pirated materials. I don't think there is overreaction to some proposed laws and regulations; rather, I think the internet community should reach out to the victims of piracy to determine a better course of action. Right now the debate is "Don't touch my stuff" vs. "You're going to destroy the internet." That seems to be a useless debate.

The problem I have with your argument is twofold

First, you're operating from the assumption that a creator (for lack of a better term) is not able to adapt to a new technology (the internet). Why are you making that assumption? A better question is why is the creator required to adapt to the technology? Why is the technology not required to adapt to the creator? The internet is a great thing, but it's not perfect. And it is most certainly problematic when the reaction of the internet community to copyright infringement accusations is to say "you need to adapt" as if there is no other argument but their own argument. This is especially problematic in the context of number two.

Second, I cannot disagree with your more on my analogy. Stealing someone's television is absolutely equivalent to stealing someone's television show. In both cases, the person doing the thieving is not paying for the product or service. Again, this is something that boggles my mind. How can a reasonably law-abiding citizen (e.g. you or BBS) be so ardently in favor of an Australian illegally obtaining the ability to watch a television show? Not only is this person breaking the law, they are not providing the creator with any compensation whatsoever. Erego, it's directly equivalent to stealing a television. I'm not using that example in jest and I'm not using it to demonstrate a slippery slope argument. These two situations are absolutely equivalent and to suggest otherwise is an awkward attempt (in my opinion) to justify piracy. There isn't even a moral imperative that could justify stealing a television show.

Now, I'm flying off the handle again so I'll stop. I just don't get the support for piracy. I don't get it at all. Pay for the stuff you watch or read. If you can't pay for it, oh well. You are not entitled to watch a television show or read a book for free simply because technology allows you to do so. The existence of the technology does not suddenly change the morality, nevermind the legality, of stealing someone else's works.

[BigBallinStalin]

The more important aspect of the solution seems to require the change of the business model of the content producers so that they can be competitive with the pirates.

This made me think of all the Criterion Collection films. I am sucker for classic and foreign films, and there are a lot of bad restorations and copies out there (free and nominally priced). But their quality suffers so much, that if I do end up buying such a film, I choose a Criterion Collection version since I know the quality will be worth it, in addition to the extra bonus materials they provide as well.

After all, many people would rather pay a couple bucks and sit through a couple adverts to get the media hassle free rather than having to track through torrent sites, warez, penis enlargement adverts and so on.
We've already seen that this reduces piracy by changing the incentive structure(eg: link in OP).

This is me generally.

On a semi-related note: The advent of downloadable games (drm-free like gog.com or drm-enforced like steam) has made my purchases easier, and in fact I've probably bought a few games I wouldn't have necessarily gone to a store and bought as well. I don't really see myself ever pirating a game (though to be honest, I've only ever done it a couple of times in all my years).

I don't know where I am going with any of my points.


--Andy

Here's where you're going with that: Many users don't find downloading pirated versions worth the transaction cost; therefore, they'll seek substitutes (Gog.com games---even if the GOG has a link to the very torrent which could've been searched for, without paying for the link).

Since many users are lazy/lack the ability to download stuff easily, then they'll pay for digital, legal versions. It's up to the sellers/producers to get with the times and produce such content in order to push the illegal competition (cyber pirates) more out of the picture. Instead, many producers incur a huge cost on taxpayers in seeking to prosecute them for downloading stuff. It actually became cheaper for producers to rent-seek instead of innovate/compete.

[DoomYoshi]

By the way... anyone who is with the pirates on this one, please tell me where your valuables are and I will come take them from you.

And for whatever it's worth, I'm with crispy and FT - the companies should not use a clumsy tool like internet regulation to get what they want. They need to use the court system and for the current laws to be enforced.

I am with the pirates to a point. I think that rampant downloading of Game of Thrones the week after it comes out is despicable.

On the other hand (and this is where I am with them) public domain used to mean a lot less than it does now. Disney pushed to extend the copyright laws until 75 years after the original author died. This is ludicrous and is an example of how the legislature has failed.

If you invent the CURE FOR CANCER, I can make it (legally) 20 years later. And yet it's illegal for me to download Song of the South? Are you fucking kidding me? Medication and technology has less of a copyright than semi-racist smut? I can build (and legally sell) Apple IIs, but going on a Bonanza-marathon is an international felony. So, until the law changes to a more reasonable definition, I am using my own unreasonable definition. My personal definition is that your work lapses into public domain 5 years after you created it, unless you are actively advocating for the years to be pushed back to 20; in which case I give you 20 years copyright. Since (AFAIK) nobody is doing this, my definition is 5 years across the board.

So, come take my valuables tgd, I dare you. I know you won't stop until every work of art has the same copyright restriction as the King James Bible (still not in the public domain, although I don't understand why they aren't hounding the f*ck out of bible.com), and for this, you are unreasonable.

Also, as an historical tidbit: when Dickens visited America, the number one thing he was appalled at was the illegal printing of his books. So, if you dislike the current state of affairs you truly are a Dick(ens).

[BigBallinStalin]

By the way... anyone who is with the pirates on this one, please tell me where your valuables are and I will come take them from you.

And for whatever it's worth, I'm with crispy and FT - the companies should not use a clumsy tool like internet regulation to get what they want. They need to use the court system and for the current laws to be enforced.

Actually, cyber piracy is completely different from piracy.

With piracy, it's a zero-sum exchange.

With cyber piracy, the product is replicated. So instead of A transferring from Bob to Henry, A becomes copied, so that both Bob and Henry have one. That's not quite the same as you coming into my house, avoiding my booby traps, and taking my beloved laptop. If you wanted to cyber pirate my laptop, then we'd both have two. NOT A BAD DEAL.

[AndyDufresne]

So, come take my valuables tgd, I dare you. I know you won't stop until every work of art has the same copyright restriction as the King James Bible (still not in the public domain, although I don't understand why they aren't hounding the f*ck out of bible.com), and for this, you are unreasonable.

This made me think of this recent NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/arts/ ... mages.html

Many museums post their collections online, but the Rijksmuseum here has taken the unusual step of offering downloads of high-resolution images at no cost, encouraging the public to copy and transform its artworks into stationery, T-shirts, tattoos, plates or even toilet paper.

The museum, whose collection includes masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Mondrian and van Gogh, has already made images of 125,000 of its works available through Rijksstudio, an interactive section of its Web site. The staff’s goal is to add 40,000 images a year until the entire collection of one million artworks spanning eight centuries is available, said Taco Dibbits, the director of collections at the Rijksmuseum.

“We’re a public institution, and so the art and objects we have are, in a way, everyone’s property,” Mr. Dibbits said in an interview. “‘With the Internet, it’s so difficult to control your copyright or use of images that we decided we’d rather people use a very good high-resolution image of the ‘Milkmaid’ from the Rijksmuseum rather than using a very bad reproduction,” he said, referring to that Vermeer painting from around 1660.

Until recently, museums had been highly protective of good-quality digital versions of their artworks, making them available only upon request to members of the press or to art historians and scholars, with restrictions on how they could be used. The reasons are manifold: protecting copyrights, maintaining control over potentially lucrative museum revenues from posters or souvenirs and preventing thieves or forgers from making convincing copies.

I like the idea.


--Andy

[thegreekdog]

So, here's the problem with IP law.

Let's set it for 10 years on copyrights, patents, whatever. Let's assume that the best balance.

How does the political process distort those 10 years? Well, through rent-seeking, businesses get to expand that limit. If you examine the history of IP law, you'll see the time extension increasing from roughly 10-20 years to 80+.

Do you think there's a problem with that?

I do, and I see piracy as an avenue of resistance against that political process because the legal means for inducing change to that law seem bleak and costly.

So your response is to permit piracy? That seems as ham-fisted as the current proposed internet regulations.

It's not (1) either you make absolutely no money, or (2) you make money. It's on the margin. Also, if someone copies your book into digital format, and if your book becomes are a big (free) hit on the internet, then that's all FREE advertising. Since sales are on the margin, you'll make some from people who want the book, some from people who want the legal ebook, and none from people who spread your name. Since your name is hopefully out there, then you'll get more opportunities to get paid for making speeches, giving lectures, etc.

Similar arguments to yours were brought against paperback books, legal digital media, cinema v. TV, etc.. It turns out that such arguments were groundless. They were slippery slope arguments of exceedingly fantastic consequences.

I'm not sure you used "on the margin" correctly.

You do know that quite intelligent people are arguing vociferously and forcefully to put a stop to internet piracy. Why do you think they do this? I mean, I hate to be so obvious, but they probably are arguing for additional internet regulation so that they can make more money. And, no offense, those people are probably more knowledgeable about the entertainment industry than you are. So, again no offense, you're probably wrong; or at least a whole lot of people, who create, produce and distribute entertainment, think that you're wrong. And, without any moral imperative or stance whatsoever on your part, I have to side with the entertainment industry and not you.

In sum, pirates are stealing a guy's stuff (an immoral act) and the guy thinks he's losing money. Even if the guy isn't actually losing money, the pirates are still stealing the guy's stuff. And I trust the guy to know when he's losing money over you thinking that he's not losing money.

[patches70]

Am I the only one who still actually goes to the public library and gets books to read for absolutely no fee what so ever?

Hell, I can even download many books from my library on my Nook. And it's free. And legal.

I don't buy books ever any more. When they come out in the bookstores they come to the library as well, except I gotta get on a waiting list for the new releases but that's ok, I've always got plenty of books to read. Read the entire Game of Thrones series through library books. It was worth every penny.

[DoomYoshi]

Am I the only one who still actually goes to the public library and gets books to read for absolutely no fee what so ever?

Hell, I can even download many books from my library on my Nook. And it's free. And legal.

I don't buy books ever any more. When they come out in the bookstores they come to the library as well, except I gotta get on a waiting list for the new releases but that's ok, I've always got plenty of books to read. Read the entire Game of Thrones series through library books. It was worth every penny.

I get a lot of movies and books at the library.

[crispybits]

TGD the stealing argument is all well and good until you actually look at the reality of the situation.

I buy a film on DVD. I can legally watch that film. I can legally have as many friends or family round to watch that film as I like as long as I'm not running a commercial business around that service - no law stops me saying to all of my facebook friends and their friends and their friends etc (7 layers of friends out and you have the entire world) "hey guys, I just bought World War Z on DVD, anyone wanna come round and watch it with me?" None of those people have paid for that DVD, yet all are being given a fully legal way to watch it (as long as I dont charge people for coming over or try to make any profit by selling food/drink/whatever before, during or after I show the film).

I can even legally make a copy of that DVD onto my hard drive, and go to a friends house and log into my computer through a VPN connection and stream that movie anywhere I like to watch it at my leisure. I can fly half way round the world and watch it without any legal issue at all, and I can invite people to watch it with me (for free) wherever I like without falling foul of the law. Or of course I could carry the physical DVD to any of those places too.

The restriction in law is that I am not allowed to show that movie in a public place like a bar or park or whatever. When (theoretically) I allow someone I know to stream that video from my computer or to download it, I havent allowed it to be shown in a public place. The law only gets broken if someone shows it in a public place, and the person who showed it in a public place is the person who broke that law, not the person who supplied them with the film in the first place.

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Just on a separate note, imagine I rang the police and reported that someone had broken into my house and taken high resolution digital images of my artwork that I do for additional income in my spare time and then left without causing any property damage (say I know this because I'm a paranoid freak who has CCTV installed in every room which shows the masked invader taking photos of my art). They examine my house and find no damage, nor can they find from there any evidence (such as fingerprints) to lead them towards identifying who came into my house. Do you imagine that the police are obliged to spend unreasonable amounts of resources trawling the net finding those images? Does that theft give me any right to demand access to ISP records and violate privacy laws in order to try and track down the digital copies of my images?

The industry can and should do a hell of a lot more to reduce the market for piracy. Take this example of the flawed approach by the industry:

WB are idiots

More expensive with less selection! That's what people are looking for in a streaming service! Warner, despite dipping a toe into the Stream, seems to be relying on artificial scarcity to drive subscriptions. Many of the movies and shows it offers on Archive Instant aren't available through other streaming services or retailers. So, if you're absolutely dying to watch selected episodes from seasons 2 & 3 (but not the entire seasons, mind you) of 77 Sunset Strip (or late-80s insta-classic Disorderlies) and have nothing better to do with a ten-spot, Warner Archive is tailored precisely for you.

Of course, this being a studio effort, there are a whole lot of caveats to the severely limited, expensive, streaming service -- many that you won't find hampering cheaper services with more titles.

For instance, if you want true HD, you have a single option: Roku box to TV. That's it. Hi-def streaming for PC and Mac is not supported "at this time." Also not supported: smart TVs, networked Blu-Ray players, Wii/Xbox/PS3 or mobile devices. Here's more good news: the service can only be utilized on one device at a time.

This service is far too limited and far too expensive to appeal to about 99% of everybody. Perhaps several months down the road when Warner adds more (and it will need to add a lot more) content, it might be tempting. But even with additional content, it will still be nothing more than yet another streaming service competing for market share in an overcrowded field.

Instad of analysing what the pirates are doing well on shoestring budgets and turning their huge corporate machinery onto replicating that with the added benefits of knowing that you're getting a genuine product from a secure and reliable source (which would be enough for most consumers to avoid risky piracy and pay a few bucks for the genuine article), the industry is throwing it's toys out of the pram in a toddler tantrum way and demanding that the world be changed for them because they can't or won't adapt. Oh and lest we forget, the kind of changes they are advocating would also severely hamper any independent film or music makers who are happy for their art to be distributed totally freely in order to raise awareness for themselves.

I think if sensible heads prevail we're going to move towards a solution where the real value of performance art is in the performance. Bands will let their music out for free online in order to get more people turning up at their gigs or buying their merchandise. Imax cinemas and similar will carry films with extras that are not released to the home market for the first year or two (allowing the film industry to retain control over good quality copies with the extras whilst allowing people a cheap/free way to watch the films themselves once the cinema money making period is finished, and also to get a second hit further down the line by releasing special editions with all the extras and more put back in along with some physical extras like a USB stick replica of an important prop in the film or whatever, millions of ways to add value there). There are ways to keep everyone happy if they simply use their brains and think constructively instead of just having a hissy fit....

[Crazyirishman]

I'm on the side of piracy, because at this time I feel there is a limit on to what extent people can get a profit from intellectual property. If there is something that I really like then I'll pay for it, but otherwise it is easier to just stream it off of a website.

[muy_thaiguy]

I'm with TGD. Pirating, yeah, you're stealing someone's property that they poured their hard time and money into creating. Maybe it becomes popular, maybe it doesn't. But if it does, and people see an easy to to get the product, why would they feel the need to go and buy it? In the end, all it does is hurt the creators.

And there is no such thing as a right to another person's property, all that is is stealing/pirating. There is no coloring it anything else than what it is.

Is the SOPA thing and what not the way to go? No, not really, but the people pirating stuff online are not in the right either.

On a related note, there is a game out there (something similar to SIMs I think), that if pirated, has a bug in it that makes it impossible to advance as a buisiness because people are pirating their goods. And people that pirated the game sent the publishers a bunch of e-mails complaining about it. Irony at its finest.