Glorious.

The satire fits perfectly. And the Irony. Oh, it makes me laugh. Sap from the driptray. More like the sticky table...

Marvellous...freetards precisely. Go Reg. Go FoTW (not FtoTW)

hmmm......

Oh Yes the irony..............................

Insane by name...

....insane by nature! Because I am a mega PAYTARD!! And I have never been prouder of that fact!

It's Friday night and I want to go home

Better go out and nick a car then.

Right on!

He's right you paytard losers; I'll bet you even do actual work while you're at work instead of leeching off your employer by posting comments on 'The Register' instead!

(we need a magnet icon so we can detect irony)

Fits the pattern

Actually, this fits exactly what I tried to post when the article appeared, but the posting option disappeared.

I've seen exactly this kind of behaviour before, for example on various video games' chat rooms and forums. Invariably there'd be some... well, the most retarded kind of pirates, the kind which couldn't even find a crack on their own. So they'd come over with ridiculous excuses, like "I threw away the jewel case before installing the game", and ask that someone gives them a serial number.

And invariably, if you cornered them before a moderator woke up and kicked them out, it boiled out to exactly the argument from this FOTW: you're all retarded to pay for something you could steal.

The music freetards have long enjoyed a wider selection of strawmen in their arguments. It's a gift culture. (Sorry, I know about potlatch cultures, they don't work that way.) It's fighting the villainous publishers. It's a fight for freedom. (E.g., from DRM... on non-DRM-ed CDs.) It's creating a new, more efficient/democratic/fair/techno-utopian distribution model. Etc.

But I always suspected that if you somehow managed to cut a pirate off at the pass and not let him use the canned strawmen, it would really boil down to the same fundamentally sociopathic attitude: if you can steal it, you'd have to be retarded to pay for it.

I didn't think I'd see someone actually manage to counter those strawmen in my lifetime, but, lo, apparently it's possible. And the FOTW promptly came with the exact kind of argument I was expecting to hear.

Geez

I wish I had such a refined power of self-delusion that I could believe being a cheap bastard was somehow noble.

Hoist By Their Own PAYTARDS.

Can't find a free beer until St. Patrick's Day?

No wonder PAYTARDS are so cranky.

-- a FREETARD and proud of it

freetard?

those who 'nobly' refuse to pay creators of media that demand payment or 'just compensation' might be labelled as 'freetards' but those of us who use Free Software or Open Source software can hardly be called 'freetards' or anything of the sort! - the authors and creators of such software have nobly allowed the creations to be copied freely, used freely etc. heck, I could even add new functions to such software if I need to (and sometimes have) - which then get fed back to the main program.

sure. pay for your favourite word processor or OS - but if theres something you dont like about it, you'd better hope the core developers feel the same way or it'll never change. I can choose which desktop environment I want and how it works...I can also clearly remove any modules I dont want to run. No firewire on my system - and never will be due to removal of firewire in my kernel configuration/compilation - now if someone inserts a firewire card, my machine isnt compromised. pity about your Windows or MacOSX system.

Free Beer

So if El Reg knew of a pub where the beer was free (as in "free beer") you wouldn't accept? If it means free beer, I'm with the freetards.

Flame

damd freetards. i HATE them so much they should nto be given the time fo day you are just encoreging them stealing from people they are just theivs all of them. i hope that this guy is thrown out of the country probably polish or somthing stealing stuff and probably using linex and stuf.

(I hope it that all fits within the flaiming rules :-) Although I do find it to get that angry about someone who is just an ideot)

Oh, and AC, as you cant truly flame and then not do it AC, or do true FoTW contenders not think of that?

Brewing Industry - Brainwashed

Mmm - Beer..

FoTW, where are ye now?

The BootNote resolved my puzzlement, since as flames go, the letter was, well ... .

It's a shame that 'FoTW' has to be repurposed just to get some use out of it. What's happened to the Internet I used to know?

Down with that sort of thing

Did you see his lad father?

Well, he has a point, in his own twisted way...

Think about it,

I make beautiful furniture.

I sell a chair, it is a work of art.

I don't get a payment every time someone sits in it, or lends it to a neighbour, or sells it to someone else.

So why should I pay someone every time I listen to a piece of music, or look at a photograph, or read a book?

And why should I still have to pay that for every copy until 70 years after the author is dead?

My daughter is a painter, the same applies, she sells her paintings, some people have started collecting her work , because they think that they are good investments. If one of her paintings or sculptures fetches large sums of money in 20 years, she will not benefit.

Why is the word, music, or photographic image different?

Add to that the fact that the recording industry generally don't pay artists for downloaded music. Who is the Tard?

The world is changing, art is changing, and the greedy are starting to lose out.

Well, pardon me if I am not sorry for them.

I personally do not think that Britney Spears or Elton John, for example, have earned their vast wealth, or the record company executives.

@Charles Manning

<= Says it all!

Forget the pub.

I can't make it to the pub with you, I'll be getting my fill from raiding the freetards ice box. Don't worry, they won't mind my drinking all their homebrew?

Paris because she is looking for a pub buddy.

Moral Problems

Let me see if I understand this. Someone develops a FOSS application and willingly offers it to users free of charge. One user checks it out, finds it meets his needs/wants and takes the developer up on his offer. Another user chooses to pay another developer to use her proprietary application instead because he finds it meets his needs/wants. Why should either user be denigrated for his perfectly legitimate and perfectly legal choice? Okay, either user may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer fiscally speaking because he didn't consider total cost of ownership or because he never even considered alternatives. So? Oh, I know, let's belittle the very real victims of mental retardation by making their condition a joke and a derogatory thing. I've known some truly wonderful mentally retarded folks and I'm pretty sure Andrew Orlowski and the other fans of the terms "freetard" or "paytard" are nowhere near as wonderful. And by the way, Andrew, trying to redefine such terms such that they refer to people whose morals you despise doesn't magically disassociate you with belittling those whose medical condition you despise. Grow up already - it wasn't okay to yell "retard" at other kids on the playground and it still isn't. I generally enjoy the Reg's irreverent style, but this 'tard stuff makes me sick.

Two things

Firstly, presumably the nice white jacket that does up at the back was a freebie?

Secondly, how the feck do you type with it on?

P.S. Does the nurse wipe your dribble away every so often?

@ Leo Maxwell

Your argument is flawed:

You make beautiful furniture. You sell a chair, it is a work of art.

Two months later MFIkea are knocking out identical copies for a tenth of what you sell them for and they are selling like hot cakes.

Yep, you would be pretty pissed off........

And in any case your argument is a straw man as no-one pays every time they play a DVD or CD they have bought, or every time they boot up windows. You buy it once.

I refer you back to Hans Mustermann's post further up the page.

@highlander

Theft deprives the owner of what they had before and copying doesn't. The b'tards are those who want to turn others into slavetards by selling software that creates heroin-like dependencies upon a single supplier (1), and retards by selling software that the end user isn't allowed to study. I'll have mine free as in freedom thanks. Freedom to study, modify and redistribute.

1. Bill Gates, speaking in 1998 at the University of Washington: "About 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

@Trevor Watt and The Reg

How does a big business exploiting their advantage over small producers relate to the issue of whether you should be paid once for the work you do, or every time someone appreciates it? It's simple:

Car mechanics get paid when they repair your car, not every time someone different wants to drive the car.

Seed growers get paid for the seeds, not every time a new flower grows (although this may change if the big bio research companies get their way).

Chair manufacturers get paid for the chair, not for every time someone different sits in it.

Musicians should get paid for PLAYING music, not every time someone hears it.

Artists should get paid for PAINTING pictures, not every time someone views it.

Somewhere along the line, people started thinking being a musician automatically makes you deserve to be a millionaire. It doesn't. It's nothing special. If you're really that good, like Trent Raznor, then enough people will like your music that they'll actually give you what you deserve.

It's sad that people are so brainwashed that they actually defend the people who are ripping them off.

And I'm ashamed that The Reg is using the word "freetards". I guess I'll have to look elsewhere for news that doesn't share its ideology with Time Warner and the rest of the world's increasingly powerful corporate masters.

@ Trevor Watt

Your argument is also flawed.

So you make a nice chair

But after that you can make copies of that chair - for nothing!

MFIKea need to tool up and manufacture their copy - which will take a while

In the interim, you can sell your free-to-make copies at massive profits

In the end the copy is not quite the same anyway (so it cant be passed-off as yours). The snob value and your support costs for fixing / upgrading your chair (which isn't as good quality as you said it was) keep you in mega business - for eternity, because you pay the shops to suppress information about the MFIkea chair (just like PC World and OOO).

Is that sensible?

So Freetard of Paytard. The choice is yours!

spegru

DRM Beer

I think the Freetard Music (FM) movement, which has a problem with DRM, is different from the Freetard Why Pay (FWyP; pronounced f-wipe) movement.

The mythical DRM beer scenario goes like this. You buy a DRM beer but you can't drink it straight from the bottle, you have to have a particular "blessed" glass to pour it in before you drink it. If you don't have that glass - no beer for you. Sure you can get another glass blessed but then the old glass won't work. You can give the beer to a friend but they can drink it only if you gave them the blessed glass also. Also, you can't swill your beer from a mug because that isn't a glass and it can't be blessed. Tankards are strictly out of the question and only used by unenlightened heathens and nobody would bless a tankard, so don't bother asking.

The FM folks just want their damn beer any way the like it. The FWyPs figure why bother paying for the beer at all if there are kegs broken open on the parked delivery truck, errr, I mean lorry. As always, about 95% of the broken kegs contain crap beer anyway.

For me, life is just to short to drink crap beer.

If you dont like people ripping off your media then make it quality of quantity

How many time have you been to see a film at the cinema only to be sadly disapointed that it doesnt come up to the hype. I can understand downloading films off torrent then if they are any good buying the DVD when it comes out. I am perfectly willing to pay for a product software music film etc if it is as good as they say it is but how can I tell when the advertising tell lies.

I understand the arguement that making a film for instance is very costly however how much of the costs are for production i.e. actors, writers, artists, craftsmen. If they were asking a fair profit on the costs of production that would be fine. However as the productors are quite willing to loose money on 3 films out of 5 we have to pay for their backing of the wrong horse.

There is no accounting for taste, I will admit but how about the times when you are watching a film and recognise the plot from some earlier work.They just keep reusing the same old tired plots so that watching a film for 15 minutes is sufficent to know how it will end up. Why should I be expected to pay for something ripped off by the media corporations themeselves. If they come up with something novel they get my money, if it is just a pretty version of some story I already read then I should be able to pay what I think it is worth.

Its the same across the board, books, music, films you name it, why should we be expected to pay over the odds for Pap

@Trevor Watt

Yeah, cos MFIkea can mass produce the same sort of high quality artistic chair that Leo makes.

BTW, can you mention one thing which MFIkea produce which isn't a cheap copy of a Habitat product?

>> And in any case your argument is a straw man as no-one pays every time they play a DVD or CD they have bought, or every time they boot up windows. You buy it once.

Yep it's a straw man because a single point of his argument isn't 100% watertight - and besides, if MS/MPAA/RIAA had their way you would pay every time you played it or booted your PC.

Going back to Hans Mustermann's post and the original article:

>> So they'd come over with ridiculous excuses, like "I threw away the jewel case before installing the game", and ask that someone gives them a serial number.

In what way does the above relate to Linux users bypassing the weak BBC security measures in order to get the same service as their fellow licence payers? In what way does using legitimately aquired Free software to play media you have legitimately paid a licence for make you a freet*rd? All the freet*rds will have been using iPlayer on their pirate copies of Windows for months.

Sad to say ...

PAYTARDS bemoan the soft US Dollar because it takes more dollars to buy toilet tissue.

FREETARDS know that making the US Dollar both softer and *more absorbent* also solves the problem.

Art is what you see in it. The value of Art is what someone else sees in it.

Freetards, and the Piracy Myth,

Seems to me that the media industry is living in a dream world. They seem to think that if they can stop piracy the will magically increase their profits by huge amounts.

Wrong.... most people who download are not going to pay for it if they can no longer download... End of story.

They seem to think that their products are indispensable.. That people wont be able to live with out them....

Wrong.... people do not need movies, music, art or software to live. They need food, fuel, water and shelter to live.

The first thing to go in my home when the next depression comes along will be the internet, shortly followed by spending of entertainment (Cable TV, CD/DVD purchases etc).

Wake up all.... Freetards/Paytards don't really exist.... People will pay for what they can afford or get it free if they don't think they will get in trouble or LIVE WITHOUT!.

Very simple concept which appears to have been forgotten by so many on this planet.

I think MS are living in a dream world if they think subscription software will fly while GNU/Linux is about. Who here would honestly pay a fee every time they used the PC? No one would...

I think the Movie industry could do well with subscription Downloads... Video rental has been very successful. But they need to market it properly an charge a fair rental price. This will work because you only watch a movie once or twice.

Subscription music is in a middle ground... Some may pay per listen if its a couple cents per play.... But charge to much and it will be a failure.

Wheather MS, RIAA et. al like it or not they can not shape the market to give them everything they wont. Its still the customers choice and if the customer doesn't like the product they really don't have to buy it.

Fucking BBC

I HAVE paid for the material - as a TV licence payer, I am part of the sole source of the income the BBC has, without us it wouldn't be able to operate its business.

WE HAVE PAID ..... are you listening .....WE HAVE PAID

Oh dear god.

I had a dream the other night. I found myself in a dark alleyway, wedging a slimjim down the door of a black mercedes 280e, when I heard a voice from behind me say 'you wouldn't steal a car'. Next thing you know, I'm running down the street with a crappy old 20" crt tv, the kind you'd see in a $40 a night discount motel chain on the side of interstate 80. You're damn right I wouldn't steal one of those. After all, someone who owns a tv like that has obviously been crapped on by life way too much already. Suddenly I was downloading a movie, except the BitTorrent interface was all messed up, so I hit cancel, grabbed my stolen handbag and ran screaming from the room.

My point is, well I forget. But I think we can all agree that trying to ram your opinion down other peoples throats by using analogies is pretty fscking pointless?

@Trevor Watt

Let's look at it another way.

A photographer took a photograph of one of my chairs.

He sold it to an image bank for $50

If I wanted a copy, I would have to buy it.

The image bank owns that image for an (estimated) 150 years.

Neither I or the photographer have any rights over a copy of my work, which I did not give permission for.

I don't mind paying the artist.

I object to paying a business again and again for the same piece of art ( or poor copies) on CD, VHS, DVD, Bluray.

And when you listen somebody pays, the radio station, the bar, the supermarket, but the money very rarely gets back to the artist.

Radiohead made more money by offering one album on the internet, for "whatever you want to pay" than they have made from any other downloaded music ,ever.

It seems that if you download it from iTunes or whatever, the artist gets nothing.

So who are you stealing from if you get it off Bittorrent?

Not the artist, but the record companies that are already stealing it from the artists, that's who.

Its the one with the anti-stab back.

@Leo Maxwell

Mod +1 Inciteful.

Well said sir.

Big Ade. (Somewhere between Free and Paid. May be a faidtard)

Hiretards rise up

No more will we be downtrodden by the Frees and the Pays in this world.

Re: @ Leo Maxwell (By Trevor Watt)

Fail. BIG EPIC FAIL.

Firstly, ever heard of a cover band? If not, they are bands who play other peoples songs, often get paid for it, but don't pay royalties. In effect, there are your cheap MFIkea knock-offs.

Secondly, if Leo discovers that his design of chair is a hit, he can't just bung it on the photocopier to make more. It takes more skill, time, materials, and tools. He can't send the original away and get back a box a week later with 2000 more in it that are exactly the same. Every time he sells a chair, it represents more investment is what he does.

Musical artists, on the other hand, can spend a year writing an album, two weeks recording it, and then will get money every time a copy is sold for the rest of their lives.

I have spent two hours today writing code that could be used for the next five years or more. It's a creative, if not artistic work. I will get paid for two hours labour for it, and not a penny more. If that code is still running in 5 years, or has been shared with other companies worldwide, I won't get a cent more for it.

Disclaimer: I am also a non-recording musical artist.

@magilla

"Firstly, ever heard of a cover band? If not, they are bands who play other peoples songs, often get paid for it, but don't pay royalties. In effect, there are your cheap MFIkea knock-offs."

Not so. In the UK, the venue must have a PRS license. The fee paid by the venue to the PRS pays the royalties. The venue gets paid by the cover band through their cut on door take/ticket money whatever.

If the cover band wishes to record their covers professionally, then they must also pay the MCPS before any pressings can be made.

I am a gigging musician in a cover band.

And here's a good one for you... If you as a non-recording artist suddenly decided that you want to record your work, you'll have to register with MCPS to make sure that you get paid if someone else covers your work - and you'll have to pay them when you get your CDs made, because you're recording the work of an artist on their books - even though it's your OWN work.

Paytards...

Touche. Seems fair enough to me. Conversely Andrew you feel you are doing something `noble` by lining the pockets of those media whores and their minions? IF I could give the money direct to an artist who was making a living (and not exorbitant) from his or her art I would feel obliged to do so, as a fellow human being. Unfortunately this is not the world that has been created by the very industries you seem to defend so keenly. Who gets pushed to the surface in this mass media propoganda circus and who doesn't.... mostly those who I _would_ like to pay for their efforts are not those who are promoted by the mediawhores.

Dont think for a moment that I go out and work to make money to actually PAY for 99% of the shit I look at, because it's just that - shit, mostly. Superficial, generic entertainment into which little effort has been invested by any one artist or creator. And even then many of the releases rake in millions. But that's not enough is it. "Waaah, we want more money, waahhh we spent millions advertising,wahhh what about our rights to all this money" Where someone has worked hard and developed a quality piece of work that I like and respect I will pay THEM for it. Not the parasitic leeches who collectively make an exorbitant living from pimping the talents of others. Anyway, doesn't one of those new 7 Sins cover this? Something to do with it being a sin to be `obscenely wealthy` - see where I'm going with this?

I have purchased every `quality` game and piece of music/album which I wanted and enjoyed. Anything else I may have ever `obtained` from the internet I would absolutely catagorically never ever have paid money for anyway. I have not deprived anyone of anything.