'Shame on the register to post wrong informations'
Heard the one about The Pirate Bay being ripped off? This week there was a lovely story of the Swedish scofflaws being annoyed by clone sites. Many of you enjoyed the wedding-cake sized dollops of irony in this, but some furious freetards didn't. El Reg has got it all wrong, they insist. MarKo1 is a newcomer to the Reg forums, …
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Re: Irony
I don't think Orlowski's intent is to help scammers target people whether they are pirates or not. Besides, someone dumb enough to pay for a torrent probably isn't reading El Reg. in the first place. (Probably).
Re: Irony
Three pints says there are already half a dozen tumblr links to the article.
Re: Irony
I think Andrew's only intent is to openly ridicule people that don't agree with him.
It's all cool
TPB deserves exactly what they get and they ain't gonna like it. What goes around usually comes around. I don't think TPB will get the last laugh nor will the Freetards.
The song lyrics are : "I fought the law and the law won."
Re: It's all cool
Is that a copyright violation I see? Quoting song lyrics without attribution of credit to the copyright holder and/or song righter? Did you get permission from the rights-holder to quote that?
Oh, that's right! Due to Fair Use laws you were allowed to do that without fear of punishment! At least in some countries, and for the time being. Right up until the entertainment industry gets it's way and removes those pesky "rights".
I'll say it again
People who use the word Freetard are themselves Retards.
I'm no freetard!
Because some of the stuff I download isn't free at all, so there!
Oh darn, wait a sec....
To the editors of The Registers.
The censorship of comments on this site has made my contributions pointless.
The most vociferous participant in this censorship is AO, he is incapable of accepting any criticism and I can only assume it is due to his arrogance.
I will be deleting my account as The Register has become a bastion of ego driven self promotion where all negative criticism is denied.
I will not spend an more of my time pandering to an organisation which denies a voice to anyone who dares utter any negative thoughts towards its writers.
I have no doubt that this comment will also be censored but I do hope whoever rejects it has the courage to pass it onto the editorial management.
DENIAL is the Word. Look it up!
AO's views are his and he is free to express them just as you are yours.
Reality is that piracy is NOT going to go unpunished. The vocal minority can cry me a river and they will still be punished for piracy. It's not the copyright holders who are violating law, it's those in the minority who believe they are above the law. They make prisons for folks who can't deal with reality.
Rarely does The Register censor comments even meritless ones like yours.
Re: To the editors of The Registers.
FWIW, any "censorship" of comments is because a) they are legally unsafe; b) witless insults - you've got to do better than call someone a nob: step up to the plate and flash us your wit; c) they simply (and exclusively) demand someone be fired. News flash: they won't. See (a).
An amusing and intelligent putdown will be accepted over a lame duck "u r all takin bribes lol" missive, that much is obvious. Apologies if you've been rejected. Maybe you tripped the above guidelines.
C.
@diodesign
Hehe - I was going to post but you pretty much said it. Anyway - if somebody (like the Reg) runs and pays for a website they can decide for themselves what the fuck is on it? It's not what I'd call censorship?
Re: To the editors of The Registers.
Hey, off-topic and I apologise for that, but while there's a mod around, can I put in a plea to get rid of the Anonymous mask for anonymous posters. It's not the same thing and it's a bit untidy conflate the two.
Re: To the editors of The Registers.
It would be on-topic if you posted it on the following forum instead:
Re: To the editors of The Registers.
Make sure you let them know where to send the refund.
Does anyone remember when we used to borrow a friend's cassette tape for a day and copy it at home? Or maybe use it to make a mix-tape? It was a simpler time for pirates.
Regardless of rhetoric ...
... the simple fact is that anyone can copy digital content, and give anyone, anywhere on the planet, a copy.
That's reality. The publisher no longer controls the distribution channel(s). People can, will, do and are copying digital content. This will continue for far longer than I will be living on this dampish rock.
Note that I'm not commenting on the right or wrong of this simple fact. I'm just pointing out that this is a fact. The publishing companies need to understand this, and change their business model. Again, I don't expect this to happen in my lifetime ...
That said, I only use FOSS ... and I have store-bought physical media for all my personal audio entertainment. Seems cleaner that way ...
Re: Regardless of rhetoric ...
Yes, this is the inescapable fact that all these hysterical, sanctimonious 'anti-piracy' arguments ignore. Copyright may well have been a useful tool for creators back in the days when monks spent whole lifetimes copying two or three chapters of a book with a sharpened quill, but in the digital age of today, when anyone can copy anything in a millisecond at no cost, it is about as relevant as a nosebag of hay on the front of a bullet train.
Morality does not enter into this argument - the world is changing and, as King Canute noted, we must change with it or die. Every day we see countless examples on the internet of businesses that make huge sums of money by giving away things infinitely more valuable than some crappy popsong or maudlin movie, or charging for freebies in return for a service; they are working hard to successfully adapt to these changes. Why should the powerful Media Corporations of America, for they are the ones who control and profit from all this, be given a free pass to the future when everyone else has to earn theirs?
The digital internet has created huge difficulties for the old distribution channels, ones that I am quite certain, and hope, will prove to be insurmountable, but it has brought unbelievable opportunities, mind-blowingly huge markets and virtually cost-free facilities right to the front doors of creators with a bit of gumption. If Mr Orlowski's much-reviled 'freetards' hasten the departure of the corrupt, greedy, criminal middlemen who stand in the way of this, thieving from artists and customers alike and propping up their outmoded industry by sueing, bribing, extorting and threatening everyone within reach, they will be doing the rest of the world a favour - artists and fans alike.
I do not think future generations of artists will thank us if we allow the crass, culture-less American Media Industry to steal the magical networking system we should be bequeathing to them and turn it into a private Paythroughthenose-GarbageTV Channel.
Andrew misrepresents the truth again.
What Andrew has left out of this article is the fine detail of what SOPA and PIPA would actually do to the browsing experience of every user. Andrew is a fundamentally conservative writer and social contrarian, but he only presents half of the issue.
The Key problem with SOPA and PIPA was that they not only eliminated safe harbor protection for ISP's and web sites, they actually reverse the burden of proof requiring anyone who posts content to the internet, be it a youtube video, a narrative, a commentary or even a link to a website ensure that none of it breaches anyone else's copyright or IP. The legislation gave media corporations the right to pursue ISP's, websites, users, and even to edit or change DNS records without warrant on the say so of the media companies.
Since the people who generate most of the content on the web are not Fox or Yahoo, its private citizens, we are the ones getting policed. Now, here is the real effect of SOPA it costs money to police user content, if it costs even as much as 5c a post that can be enough to destroy a website's profitability especially if their DNS records have been changed.
SOPA and PIPA handed over control of content production and even the links to that content, to a few media corporations who could make a claim without warrant that anything posted or linked to on a site infringed their copyright. It made websites and ISP's responsible for the content posted by their users even though they cant control their users anymore than I can control Andrew's inability to present all the information.
SOPA and PIPA are not about paying for content they say nothing about freetards, they are pieces of legislation that deal with the control of content on the net. They handed control of content policing to the media corporations whose very existence is challenged by the news/media/content that s posted and/or produced by private citizens.
The reasons why people steal digital media is...
... because:
1) It is very easy
2) You're unlikely to get caught
3) If you get caught the punishment is usually trivial
4) The consequences to the victims are not readily apparent or relevant to the perpetrator.
This is how the majority of human beings' value-systems work, it's got nothing to do with any high-brow philosophy around freedom and copyright.
The looting that took place in the UK last year is a good demonstration that if circumstances bring these four points to bear into the world of physical products, the same thing happens. A lot of the looters were "normal" citizens (ie not known criminals), they were behaving in the high-street just like they do online because for a few days the same rules seemed to apply.
Here's how this can be stopped:
1) Education. Tell everyone in the country through TV, Radio, Billboards, classes in school, that downloading digital media without paying for it is theft and will be treated as such. Just like shoplifting. Then the ignorance defence goes out the window.
2) Enforcement. Put some proper effort into tracking down people illegally sharing files.
3) Prosecution. Treat infringements as a crime like shoplifting. No three chances. You get caught, you get convicted, you get a substantial fine & community service & criminal record. Keep doing it and you get jail time.
This is why it's worth the effort of tracking down the looters from last year and hitting them with heavy sentences. The next time there's any "legitimate" social unrest, it'll be much less likely to be used as an excuse for looting.
Re: The reasons why people steal digital media is...
You do realise many would argue that there is no such thing as "stealing" publicly distributed data?
If something is private or recalled, they would happily do so. To take that information would be to do so against someone's wishes.
If something is published in papers, magazines, films, books, videos and the internet, then they see it as "publicly distributed". Thus, 1 extra copy is not seen as stealing, but "copying". Now, if someone insists "you must pat ££££s to make copies" then what does that mean?
Look at things like "The Humble Bundle" and other self distributed media. These have zero command over the copying rules (they are DRM free!). Yet make just as much money as those who want copies want to pay the creators.
However, if you criminalise everyone who wants a copy, then why would they all want to remunerate you for calling them a criminal?!
Re: The reasons why people steal digital media is...
Shut up AC! Actually, no, I have a question for you - how many people DIDN'T loot and riot? Reg units answer will be fine
Re: The reasons why people steal digital media is...
@Mr Young. The majority of people didn't loot, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't prosecute looters or adequately police communities to prevent looting happening in the first place.
The majority of people don't steal digital media (or are you suggesting they do?) but that doesn't mean we shouldn't prosecute digital media thieves or adequately police digital communities to prevent digital media theft happening in the first place.
What's your point?
Re: The reasons why people steal digital media is...
There are many arguments that try and legitimise digital media theft and there are alternative digital media licensing & distribution models than the ones used by the mainstream media producers - but that's pretty irrelevant because they don't use them, probably because they're trying to run a business not a commune. None of these arguments alter the fact that taking a free copy of digital media that you would otherwise have had to pay for is theft - regardless of how it is distributed. It's no less theft than going into a shop and walking out with a DVD and not paying is theft - after all, you're only stealing one "copy" of the DVD, not the whole lot, and the shop is a publicly accessible place, so it's being distributed publicly, all be it on physical media, yes?
I have anarchist friends who justify shoplifting on the grounds that they don't want to support global corporations by paying for their products. It's pretty much the same argument put over by digital media thieves. I don't see why my anarchist friends should be criminalised for their principles when digital media thieves are not. At least my anarchist friends don't try to deny what they are doing is illegal or claim that it should be made legal. And when they get caught, they stand up and take their punishment.
Re: The reasons why people steal digital media is...
Sorry. Still don't understand what you mean.
How is walking into WHSmith, seeing a DVD on the shelf, and walking out with only the memory of said DVD, stealing? You never picked up the DVD.
Now, if technology means we can copy anything we see, with little to no cost, how is that stealing?
Re: The reasons why people steal digital media is...
Unless your argument is that we need to change the legal definition of theft, which is very mature and which works very, very well, thank you very much, then copying digital media (or anything else, for that matter) is not, and never will be, theft. At the moment copyright infringement is, in the context we are talking about here, a civil, not a criminal, matter and so prison sentences are not available, and, unless the media industry scores a major coup, never will be.
Re: The reasons why people steal digital media is...
@Intractable Potsherd
You're right about the law on theft being very mature (ie old & out-dated), wrong about it working well in the context of digital media. It worked fine when illegal copies of media were generally so poor that people were still willing to pay for legal copies. But now it's possible to download perfectly adequate copies of films in HD that are practically indistinguishable from the legal version. This should be classed as theft and become a criminal offence on a par with shoplifting.
Re: TMI
Yet you post here?
Or do you mean we are bored of Reg pulling it up out again and again? Yep. I really wish they could be more productive in their arguments.
Re: TMI
I suspect many of us are bored with anyone who is bored of anything.
The TPB has become another image of internet freedom in a world where governments and media are trying to take more control of it.
We live in a world where copyrights, patents and lawyers are holding back creation and progress. Supporting those that stand against this is one way citizens can show their displeasure and feel they are taking a stand, even if they do not get off their backsides to do so.
Nope, wrong again
This discussion is painfully laughable. So many clueless, so much time for them to spew their foolishness.
When you have something worth protecting then you'll understand copyrights and patents. Being technically ignorant in addition to being socially ignorant doesn't help your futile cause one bit, but it clearly illustrates where the problem is.
Re: What DRIBBLE !
The world seems to disagree with your POV. That is why patent and copyright laws exist.
Piracy most definitely is evil and pirates will continue to be punished. Copyright holders will also continue to protect their copyrights - as REQUIRED by law or they will lose them.
It's time to get in touch with reality because no one is going to legalize piracy.
Re: What DRIBBLE !
Why the 'REQUIRED' in caps? Since when has the law been the bastion of sanity, morality, or common sense? When you can take me to an asian internet cafe that has licensed all it's software using the recommended western pricing models, and an asian factory that doesn't make anything with rounded corners out of the genuine concern they have for Apple's moral right to round corners, then, maybe, you might be able to say that the world disagrees with me.
Re: What DRIBBLE !
And as a minor point both of Einstein and Pythagoras would have had a copyright on the papers in which they published their respective theories.
Wow... By fast-forwarding thru Letterman's ads on my S-VHS VCR I was stealing millions (1996 dollars) from CBS/Westinghouse/World Pants etc... I must be the greatest criminal in history
Syllogistically-- Maxim:Bay :: men too chicken to buy porn:men who aren't veteran legendary thieves like moi
lets take a look at software. plenty of free software. plenty of freeware. plenty of pirated software. plenty of software revenue too. not so many free games. many freeware games. plenty pirated games. games companies are actively developing new business models - casual games, online gaming, steam, etc
why books, music and movies so special? why can't there also be a mix of free music, free-as-in-beer music, pirated music and sold music? why so greedy , the music industry?
i see the problem a little like this...
1. that prices of content are much higher than they would be if copyright were a mere 5 years, for example.
2. that most people only get paid when they work. say you do job automation, do you get recurring payments for life+99 years everytime someone wants to run your script?
"1. that prices of content are much higher than they would be if copyright were a mere 5 years, for example."
Defintely wrong. If you have less of a period you are allowed to make money during, then you will try to make more during that period. If you know you can't sell copies of a film next year, then you increase the cost of it for this year. Besides, being unable to profit reduces the incentive to keep producing that content, re-releases, etc. Instead, the content fades into history because the moment anyone tries to invest the effort into re-marketing it, cleaning it up for Blu-ray, whatever; others could take what they've done and re-distribute it for free. Thus, content could actually be lost.
"2. that most people only get paid when they work. say you do job automation, do you get recurring payments for life+99 years everytime someone wants to run your script?"
For jobs that require a lot of initial investment or development time, this model is actually necessary. For example, I could spend a year writing a software application. How am I making money by doing that? I'm not. It's an investment based on the expectation of being able to make the money back by selling the product at the end. So for someone to spend a year writing software, it is necessary that they are able to sell copies later *after* they have stopped working. Or to put it another way, yes, we need to be able to charge people "when they run my script".
The true cost of being a "freetard"
"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it" Pubilius Syrus ~100BC
I pay about $2,500 per annum for effectively unlimited access to Movies, Music and TV (especially Live Sport).
Unfortunately for the "artists" (cos they're the one's we're really worried about here right?) my money goes to my ISP ($1,200 per annum), SkyTV ($960 per annum), and 2 sites of ill repute ($150 per annum). The sites of ill repute started getting my money after new legislation was introduced in my country to fix global piracy (well done my government, another winner there!).
I pay for a season ticket to see my favourite team in my 3rd favourite sport, and I pay ad-hoc to watch my favourite teams in my first 2 favourite sports.
I paid ~$3,000 to watch my very favourite team win a World Cup here at home last year. (a kiwi freetard, probably the worst kind)
All of these things are worth the cost to me.
Basically I have an entertainment budget somewhere in the region of $3,000+ per annum.
Seems to me someone getting paid the BIG bucks (read: media industry CEO) is missing out on my money.
I'm not certain, but I think there might be more like me.
And yes, I steadfastly refuse to pay $10-$50 (local currency) for a blu-ray copy of a movie I can't even play on my Blu-ray player (I'm looking at you Sony)
A f@#ken stupid Freetard to boot.
*Never posted before, is that the freetard logo?
Re: The true cost of being a "freetard"
"*Never posted before, is that the freetard logo?"
No. You've used Tux which is the Linux logo here. Someone writing O/S software is almost the opposite of a Freetard in concept. A Free Software programmer gives freely. A Freetard takes freely.
"Seems to me someone getting paid the BIG bucks (read: media industry CEO) is missing out on my money."
Well the thing is, if you can sell the same product as someone else but you don't have to pay the development or production costs because someone else has done that, then you can sell it for cheaper. I.e. if you pay £10mil to the venues and athletes, etc. in order to be allowed to film the match, you hire the cameras, etc., you're going to have to cover your costs. If someone else then takes the finished recording and sells it themselves, they don't. So it's not really a case of the legitimate seller being stupid for not charging as much as the illegitimate one. They will NEVER be able to compete with someone who takes their product from them and re-sells it illegally. Just logically not going to happen.
And no, btw. I don't know where you got the idea that we're only worried about the "artists". I'm actually rather sick of some people leaching off the willingness to pay that the rest of us show. Piracy ultimately leaves the burden of the cost of production on those people who buy content. Maybe if piracy persists at the scale it does, enough people will get sick of paying for it and then we'll see a lot less money going into producing the content. No more big budget movies or sports extravaganzas*
(*This is usally where some snob comes in and says how modern culture is trash anyway. Before pirating the shit out of it).
Re: The true cost of being a "freetard"
Thanks Harmony, you seem to be the authority on the topic here?
I don't think I made my point very well. What I am saying is that I pay a lot of money to be branded a criminal freetard, but the fact is I cannot get the product I am after through legitimate means. I think the 'entertainment' industry is missing a trick here. Here's what I want, and here's what I am prepared to pay to get it (actually it is what I *do* pay to get it) and I think it is a fair price (hence the quote from Pubilius).
Maybe I don't fit the same definition as TPBtards.
IMO however, the entire industry is completely out of whack. Does (purely for illustrative purposes) Tom Cruise deserve to get paid what he does for acting? Seriously? Does any actor? If he was curing cancer then sure, saving lives yes, but memorising some lines and acting?
Perhaps the industry is realising now that the *real* money is not and has never been in the content itself, but in the distribution of said content (from physical media to bit and bytes). Unfortunately they don't 'own' the new distribution channel and are finally facing some stiff competition. I know for a fact ISPs in my country are not interested in blocking torrent traffic and the like because they all charge by Data Caps not bandwidth caps. They make big money off freetards and paytards alike because they own the distribution channel.
I know this is a slightly different angle to the regular argument vis a vis is it stealing or not, but I think it needs to be pointed out. They made their bed, but they're not getting much sleep in it.
Not everything is black and white.
Re: The true cost of being a "freetard"
"I don't think I made my point very well. What I am saying is that I pay a lot of money to be branded a criminal freetard, but the fact is I cannot get the product I am after through legitimate means"
Ah, see now that's one of the "legitimate" reasons. Quote marks because by legitimate, I mean its not simply about not being willing to pay. It's in there with availability in different reasons. I'm not actually going to argue against that. I think it's one of those things that is just an artifact of the newness of online distribution and it will resolve itself in time as the companies wise up to the business opportunity of selling directly to the customers in different regions. What I am saying is that there are very few of these "legitimate" reasons left and most of what is put forward (certainly on here) has merely been rationalisation of taking things for free, rather than actual consistent reasons.
"IMO however, the entire industry is completely out of whack. Does (purely for illustrative purposes) Tom Cruise deserve to get paid what he does for acting? Seriously?"
Personally, no, Those sums are out of proportion to other careers that I thnk have greater contribution to society. But then that's my personal view and it's not really up to me to say how much a company (e.g. a studio) can pay its employees (e.g. Tom Cruise). They obviously think he's worth paying that much (it's funny how critics both accuse movie and music studios of being impossibly greedy and cheating their artists whilst in the next post complaining about how overpaid the artists are. Not talking about you, btw. Just that I see this a lot). Anyway, more to the point, the public are willing to pay for it. I don't really know whether Tom Cruise, the script writer or the pyrotecnics girl are getting more than they should. I just buy the product and leave it to the shareholders to deal with it if Tom Cruise's salaray is eating into their profits.
"Perhaps the industry is realising now that the *real* money is not and has never been in the content itself, but in the distribution of said content (from physical media to bit and bytes)."
See now there we disagree. It's the middle people who are going to ultimately lose out by new distribution methods. High street shops selling DVDs, etc. Bad times for them. But the content producers would love to be able to sell things online. Do sell things online. I can buy quality MP3s or movie downloads and it is fine. I don't think any of them have any issue with the new distribution methods other than that people use them to take without paying.
"I know this is a slightly different angle to the regular argument vis a vis is it stealing or not, but I think it needs to be pointed out. They made their bed, but they're not getting much sleep in it."
Go ahead. I'm arguing with the idiots who try to explain why they are entitled to something for free and why they aren't freeloading on what other people pay when they download the latest movie. That's what "Freetard" means. Yours is one of the more intelligent posts here.
"Not everything is black and white."
Please tell that to the person I'm arguing with upthread who insists celebrities are evil. ;)
Cheers,
H.
why authors/musicians/directors so insecure about their abilities to produce new material that their customers will pay for? i have no issues with others copying my scripts(only that i'm shy about it - they're not good enough), i'm confident that the next customer will pay me to write new ones customised to their requirements - its really my employer that thinks the drivel is secret.
Copyright
This being the employer who pays you for writing code? The same employer who then looks to make some money selling your code and so that they can pay you some more money?
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