Pirates Given Sentence

[FreakyFerret]

wmacdona, for the most part, I agree with you. However you fail to notice one thing: file sharing, in and of itself, is not illegal is any way. Sharing of copyrighted materials is. A lot of the content on torrents and other file sharing systems is public domain or noncopyrighted material. As one example, look at anime which has been released in Japan and is copyrighted there but has yet to be released in the USA. Until it is released in the USA, it is not illegal to share the property to others within the USA. This does include copyrighted material in Japan. That's how fansubs (or fan subtitled anime) is allowed to exist openly in the USA. Fansubs consist of material that is not yet released in the USA, and so is not copyrighted here yet. Once the material is released in the USA, fansub sites remove their fansubs from their sites and direct users to retail locations selling USA copyrighted material. This is another example of file sharing actually bolstering sales of a product since most anime fans wind up buying the USA released product.

Redsox, I don't have a quote of the law handy, but it should be available on some government website. The only place I would know to find it quickly would be on WestLaw which is a pay for service site. I don't have a subscription there, and if I did, I could not copy material from there as it would violate their copyright. Additionally it's a really old law from back in late 70s early 80s. Good luck finding it.

 

[mxosder16]

thanks for the response and the original post FreakyFerret

 

[FreakyFerret]

Dinesh, pointing out one can't afford the product doesn't negate the legality of the action. As I said earlier, the law doesn't care about intention but only the act of the illegal activity. It's like the homeless guy who steals a slice of bread from a bakery. He needs the food to live or he'll die. It doesn't change that what he did was illegal.

Personally though I think if someone makes $100 a month, it's a bit much to charge them $300 for an O/S. In today's world, if you don't have a relatively up to date computer, you're left out of a lot of things. It's why we have organizations such as One Laptop Per Child (people realize the importance of computers).

Again it all falls into the "individual decisions and morality". I wouldn't put the homeless guy in prison for stealing bread. I'd make sure he had the help he needed to develop his life so he didn't need to steal. I wouldn't condemn impoverished areas (in USA and other countries) for pirating software to empower themselves and better their world. While I think creators of intellectual property deserve to be compensated fairly, just as there is a fine line between thievery and piracy, there's a fine line between fair compensation and greed.


Edit: On the topic of piracy causing higher prices, it could be argued higher prices cause piracy. Which came first: the chicken or the egg. After all, if Microsoft sold Windows 7, full Ultimate version, for $100 instead of $300, how many more copies would they sell? If they sell 3 times as many, they would not lose or gain anything (other than a more loyal customer base maybe).

Doing the math, in July of 2007 (only months after its release), Vista had 60 million copies sold. If they reduced the price by 1/3, they would have to have sold 180 million copies in order to have the same revenue. 120 million people is not that much when you consider the population of the industrialized world. Now, let's speculate if the price was lower, would have the product have sold more than 3 times that volume? If the price was only $99, and Microsoft had sole 240 million copies (not all that unreasonable a number), they would have actually had a profit. How many casual home users would have willingly paid the $99 over the $299 price?

January 2008, 100 million copies sold
May 2008, 140 million copies sold
July 2008, 180 million copies sold
Projected 590 million by 2009's end

Looking at these numbers, we can figure out that sales were roughly 40 million copies a quarter. That's 120 million a year. This calculation is based on old data though. All this is based off a product which by most reviews is failing. So much so Microsoft tried to "rebrand" Vista as Mojave in an ad campaign to get consumers to think of it differently. In March 2008, Microsoft lowered the price of Vista. Since then, sales increased greatly. A clear sign most consumers love a sale (and lowered price).

And I had a point, but it's really late in the day (and week), and my brain just shut down. Oh well. Time to go play some Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. A game that is really old, released over 6 years ago in 2003, and is still played by a large number of people. Hm, what's that say about piracy?

 

[Dinesh]

Completely agreed.

 

[blackroseMD1]

I think it's hilarious all the people that are talking s*** about TPB on here. If I recall correctly, most of the people on here are using a build of Win7 above 7000. I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to bet that most of you that downloaded those ISOs had a TPB tracker going in your torrent software.

There is no point in debating the ethics of piracy on here. Some people are against it, some people are for it. I needed the CS4 Master Collection for work, but I certainly can't afford to pay thousands of dollars for it. If these companies are that concerned about piracy, maybe they need to put a reasonable price on their products. $20 for a CD with one hit, a couple of good tracks and 8 or 9 tracks of filler? That's not fair to the consumer.

 

[damoh]

I think it's hilarious all the people that are talking s*** about TPB on here. If I recall correctly, most of the people on here are using a build of Win7 above 7000. I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to bet that most of you that downloaded those ISOs had a TPB tracker going in your torrent software.

There is no point in debating the ethics of piracy on here. Some people are against it, some people are for it. I needed the CS4 Master Collection for work, but I certainly can't afford to pay thousands of dollars for it. If these companies are that concerned about piracy, maybe they need to put a reasonable price on their products. $20 for a CD with one hit, a couple of good tracks and 8 or 9 tracks of filler? That's not fair to the consumer.

Exactly

 

[Colonel Travis]

I use the pirate sites. And it's not because I think I deserve what I download because the big bad companies are destroying humanity.

I use them because I can.

Big difference between me and all these morons who think they're owed a product or service no matter what. I'd like to visit their house one day and take all the crap I don't have, since it's patently unfair for them to have it and not me, because of any reason of convenience I come up with.

 

[poin2]

I wonder if the U.S. is ever going to crack down on things like YouTube where copyright infringement is technically rampant.

For that matter, it tends to technically be a massive thing at places like MySpace, too.

And for that matter, Google doesn't seem to do a thing to prevent it, even facilitating filetype searches for things like mp3's and torrents.

 

[mxosder16]

I wonder if the U.S. is ever going to crack down on things like YouTube where copyright infringement is technically rampant.

For that matter, it tends to technically be a massive thing at places like MySpace, too.

And for that matter, Google doesn't seem to do a thing to prevent it, even facilitating filetype searches for things like mp3's and torrents.

it's the beginning of the end of the internet!!

 

[black dog]

It is immoral for Governments to tell lies about foreign governments so they can invade them and steal from them. It is immoral to kidnap foreign nationals and pay others to torture them. It is immoral to kidnap foreign nationals and lock them away without charging them with anything...
It is especially immoral to do all that and then claim to be morally superior and have the backing of some supernatural diety, to do so.

The new morality says anything goes, if you can get away with it .

Maybe The Pirate Bay crowd should have claimed to be on a mission from god.

 

[wmacdona]

I wanted/needed that software and could not afford it. Therefore I pirated it and the company lost nothing because I could not afford it in the first place. Wow what ethics and morality. Maybe the first step would be to adjust your wants/needs with your budget like most people have to do.

What about the other person who easily could afford it but chooses to pirate because he can and the pirate site is available.

Keep on trying to justify being thieves if it makes you feel better. But we know what you are.

 

[damoh]

I wanted/needed that software and could not afford it. Therefore I pirated it and the company lost nothing because I could not afford it in the first place. Wow what ethics and morality. Maybe the first step would be to adjust your wants/needs with your budget like most people have to do.

What about the other person who easily could afford it but chooses to pirate because he can and the pirate site is available.

Keep on trying to justify being thieves if it makes you feel better. But we know what you are.

You need to calm down. Seriously. Seems to me you have been a victim of piracy yourself. Vent your anger somewhere else mate. Cos your just going to fuel an argument

 

[wmacdona]

You need to calm down. Seriously. Seems to me you have been a victim of piracy yourself. Vent your anger somewhere else mate. Cos your just going to fuel an argument

Dont respond then.
I am perfectly calm.

Just like to show the hypocrisy and feeble justifications of the pirates and their supporters.

 

[blackroseMD1]

Wow, I just got called a thief over the internet...that's going to make me change my ways. :shock:

I will gladly pay for Windows and Office, because they are actually reasonably priced for how useful they are. I thinks it's ridiculous to price Photoshop, Dreamweaver etc. at thousands of dollars, when honestly, to me, it's not worth near that.

And god knows that torrents are the root of all evil...it's not like bands like Nine Inch Nails use them to distribute uncompressed wav and flac files, and high definition video. [/sarcasm]

By the way, an album that Nine Inch Nails released partly for free independently last year, ended up being the number one selling digital album on amazon last year...so don't try to tell me that "pirates" won't support a cause that they believe in.

 

[FreakyFerret]

Technically, wmacdona, piracy is not theft, so you are wrong. Did you even read that big long post I made?

 

[Colonel Travis]

I thinks it's ridiculous to price Photoshop, Dreamweaver etc. at thousands of dollars, when honestly, to me, it's not worth near that.

Adobe software is obviously worth that price to a lot of other people who are not you, and for many reasons that people don't know or don't care to know about.

Do you own a video production company? A magazine? A daily newspaper? A photo studio? Try pirating software when your livelihood, and that of everyone you employ or do business with, would be in jeopardy.

Blackrose deserves Photoshop at a price no greater than, say $75, but everyone else needs to fork over $1,000.

How does this kind of mentality begin? It's ridiculous.

 

[blackroseMD1]

Adobe software is obviously worth that price to a lot of other people who are not you, and for many reasons that people don't know or don't care to know about.

Do you own a video production company? A magazine? A daily newspaper? A photo studio? Try pirating software when your livelihood, and that of everyone you employ or do business with, would be in jeopardy.

Blackrose deserves Photoshop at a price no greater than, say $75, but everyone else needs to fork over $1,000.

How does this kind of mentality begin? It's ridiculous.

Actually, the company I work for is a non-profit, so I was able to get CS4 for $130. I never said it was my right to get it discounted, I just said it's ridiculous that charge your average consumer thousands of dollars for 4 plastic discs and a bunch of zeros and ones.

 

[Colonel Travis]

Actually, the company I work for is a non-profit, so I was able to get CS4 for $130. I never said it was my right to get it discounted, I just said it's ridiculous that charge your average consumer thousands of dollars for 4 plastic discs and a bunch of zeros and ones.

If it were nothing but 4 plastic discs and a bunch of zeros and ones then you'd be correct. But those zeros and ones are arranged like no one else's zeros and ones. You're paying for that special arrangement.

Adobe is not the only company that helps out 501(c)(3)s. If every business did business they way they do for non-profits there would be no business period.

 

[Mark]

Put a face to the Pirates, watch their press conference and here what they have to say.

Bambuser | Press conference TPB #spectrial (Spectrial)

 

[jimbo45]

Who gives a toss about these "Kangaroo" Courts with their Lickspittle judges.

You might as well halt the tides as stop P2P -- P2P existied before "The Bay" and will continue to exist long after it's gone (if it goes).

The Music Moguls might be jumping for joy now -- but there's a HUGE difference in delivering a "Kangaroo Court" Judgement and actually enforcing it --- what are they going to do -- send the Bailiffs round to several million users all over the planet -- in several countries

I'd really laugh if they came to mine -- Our Banks are totally bust so perhaps we could send them home with shiploads of stinking Fish.


(sorry aussies - but this is a well known expression for the "incredibly sympathetic and just" courts that exist in most Western jursidictions -- no derogatory slur intended on "Down Under" -- great place , love visiting).

Cheers
jimbo