First off, that there's libel, and second, how can it be theft when nothing's being stolen? Nobody owns the photons that hits the back of peoples' eyes when they look at a computer monitor, wether it happens to play an unpaid-for hollywood movie or not.epicstruggle said:A thief is a thief, and you are a thief.
MPAA sues Btefnet!
- Thread starter digitalwanderer
- Start date
Thief!Guden Oden said:First off, that there's libel, and second, how can it be theft when nothing's being stolen? Nobody owns the photons that hits the back of peoples' eyes when they look at a computer monitor, wether it happens to play an unpaid-for hollywood movie or not.epicstruggle said:A thief is a thief, and you are a thief.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
epicstruggle said:Show me where it says you can skip the commercials on the box?Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:epicstruggle said:
Really? Show me where on the box it says "unskippable commercials included in this product".
epic
Show me where it says on the box there are commercials at all?
I know it's in your nature, but do you really want to keep being idiotic?
Im just continuing what you started? They sell a product, if you dont like it dont buy it. Wow, what a strange concept to understand. Next your going to complain that gravity sucks because it pulls you down. lol.Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:epicstruggle said:Show me where it says you can skip the commercials on the box?Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:epicstruggle said:
Really? Show me where on the box it says "unskippable commercials included in this product".
epic
Show me where it says there are commercials at all?
You want to keep being idiotic?
epic
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
epicstruggle said:
Maybe they should describe the product accurately then? I can hardly "not buy it if I don't like it" if it's described as one thing, and then it turns out to be booby-trapped with undesirable features.
I might have changed my buying decision had the product been accurately and honestly described. I have refused to buy certain products such as copy protected music CDs because I know they are faulty in my PC and car players. This only works when producers label their products honestly, as they are forced to do with some products, and fail to do with others.
Is that too difficult to understand? Next you're going to say it's allright for the food you buy to be poisoned because the label doesn't state "food not poisoned" .
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:epicstruggle said:
Maybe they should describe the product accurately then? I can hardly "not buy it if I don't like it" if it's described as one thing, and then it turns out to be booby-trapped with undesirable features.
I might have changed my buying decision had the product been accurately and honestly described. I have refused to buy certain products such as copy protected music CDs because I know they are faulty in my PC and car players. This only works when producers label their products honestly, as they are forced to do with some products, and fail to do with others.
Is that too difficult to understand? Next you're going to say it's allright for the food you buy to be poisoned because the label doesn't state "food not poisoned" .
yes the 2 situations are exactly the same. 
silence said:
243 kB/s currently over here and going strong. 8)
digitalwanderer said:silence said:
243 kB/s currently over here and going strong. 8)
a few weeks later:digitalwanderer said:
some more time passes:digitalwanderer said:
digitalwanderer said:
digitalwanderer said:
Question is, will the mpaa and riaa (and their equivalent) with their billions of dollars and govermnents they have bought enough to stop you from stealing other peoples hard work? Hmm, hard to pick the bigger evil idiot to cheer on.
epic
FYI : BTefnet have NOT been sued. They havent even been contacted by the MPAA.
What REALLY happened : the MPAA released this document, which was leaked/sent to the major news sites. BT's host got scared, and BT themselves took down the site. They are currently looking for a new host / wrangling out the legal details.
Their IRC channel is currently on +i, so dont bother trying to get there unless you know people 8), but they are still releasing the magnet links for the latest version of Azureus, which uses decentralised tracking.
Dont worry just yet folks.
What REALLY happened : the MPAA released this document, which was leaked/sent to the major news sites. BT's host got scared, and BT themselves took down the site. They are currently looking for a new host / wrangling out the legal details.
Their IRC channel is currently on +i, so dont bother trying to get there unless you know people 8), but they are still releasing the magnet links for the latest version of Azureus, which uses decentralised tracking.
Dont worry just yet folks.
Great news, thanks! 8)PoGGeh said:
epicstruggle said:
like they "won" with Napster?
you are simply an idiot trying to prove that you are more american then americans themselves, even in topic like this....
thieff?.... only thieff here is RIAA and MPAA that live on sucking out earnings from artists and people that acctually work on those projects....
tell me...exactlly what DO RIAA or MPAA have to do with movie making or composing music?
only thieves and bloodsuckers here are them and only reason why they are going so strong on P2P networks is that they will lose their cash cow...
look at Valve and Vivendi case WRT Steam....
Valve won and now can distribute their own work at their own prices cutting out the middle man.... as more studios go for Steam kind of distribution we will see shift in prices cause lets take a look how much acctually did go to Vivendi and how much did go to Valve from each sold copy?
epic....you are a sorryass idiot.... as proven so many times on these boards thats even boring to repeat.
Bigus Dickus
Regular
Guden Oden said:First off, that there's libel, and second, how can it be theft when nothing's being stolen? Nobody owns the photons that hits the back of peoples' eyes when they look at a computer monitor, wether it happens to play an unpaid-for hollywood movie or not.epicstruggle said:A thief is a thief, and you are a thief.
Libel? Pray tell I'd love to know that logic. Sheesh.
Epic is spot on... a thief is a thief. Who gives a shit if you physically steal the information in a way that removes it from its place of origin and places it in your possession? You're removing money from its rightful earner, plain and simple. You acquire something which you did not work for, did not pay for, was not given, and have no right to. You steal it.
Thief.
I think I'll set up shop next to books-a-million selling scanned-to-disc copies of all their books. Doesn't remove the physical books, so there's nothing wrong...
I think I'll wait for a really great invention to come out and then verbatim copy the design and sell it under my name. Hell, if I'm feeling nice I might just give it away for free. Doesn't remove physical devices from anyone else, so there's nothing wrong...
Better yet, I think I'll just use identity theft to have your paychecks sent to my house. Since I only diverted money from your pocket instead of removing physical items from your house, it's not stealing...
For those with a brain, I think there should be a sensible balance between IP and information protection and the fair use of that information. I agree with the practical arguments that note that DVD sales have increased profitability greatly even as the MPAA and other organizations trembled at the prospect of practical perfect copies. So I lean towards practical solutions that embrace technology instead of squashing it. However, stealing is not the answer.
As for the issue of commercials and TV recording devices, it has been said that perhaps the industry would/could/should move from a packaged commercial model to product placement within shows. I know this has already been done in small ways... payment for using Coke in a scene, or mentioning the brand of shoes, etc.
I'm sort of split on this idea, as it has great potential for convenience and for abuse. I don't want to have my viewing experience ruined by cheesy and obvious ads all over the place. On the other hand, a well integraded information system (which we are working towards with the merger of computers and entertainment) might allow me to find prices and availability for anything I saw in a movie that was really cool. How many "Matrix" phones (first movie) would have been sold if people could have thought "wow, that's cool" and pressed a button on their remote to find out the price and other information, and had one on the way to their house the next day?
Think of the potential clothing sales generated as girls watched Jessica Simpson wear a new trendy outfit on the Newlyweds.
Of course, there are problems with this model, such as where many products don't fit into that type of ad placement. Hard to find a way to promote Monistat 7 during an episode of the Simpsons.
In any case, I'm sure entertainment will evolve, as will the internet. We'll like some things better, some not as much. But stealing is never an appropriate way to show your dissatisfaction. It's hypocritical... "they're charging too much money and ripping people off, so I'm going to rip them off!" Kind of like the epitome-of-hypocritical PETA deciding to kill people to stop the harming of animals.
You can't possibly be this dense.Bigus Dickus said:
If your strongest argument is a hideously flawed analogy, then you need to re-think some stuff.
No one is selling anything. No one is profiting on these "pirated" movies.
MY main question is - is it illegal to record broadcast television, and then remove the commercials and view it later? So, for instance, if I record the latest episode of "Survivor - Indo-china" on my PVR, so I can watch it later, but then just copy it to my computer, sans commercials, and watch it later, is that wrong? If so, HOW?
And if it is not wrong, then how is me copying your copy of that wrong, since I could have just recorded it myself?
It's not so clear and cut -n-dried as you and epicstruggle make it.
Our rights are being taken away. You cannot STEAL content that has been BROADCAST.
Gee. Hmm. Let's see.
If I take a piece of paper and make a nice drawing, I'm being creative. If I take some painting of a great artist and draw a copy, is that stealing? Or, if I go to the library, take a book, put it on the copier and make some copies, is that stealing? Or, if I use a VCR to record a movie on television, is that stealing?
It will be argued, that all of the above is freely available. And if I borrow a book from the library, scan and print the contents, that's perfectly fine (lots of books are even freely available for download from the publishers, even works from current popular writers). But if you borrow a video or CD and copy that, it is illegal all of a sudden?
Why? What makes them so different?
Philips sells a recorder with harddisk, and they advertize it can record anything, and you can use it to skip all advertizing. There is even a mode that tries to do that automatically. Would that be legal? Because it can be argued, that viewing the advertizing is mandatory, so the producers make money. If everyone was to skip it, it is labelled illegal.
If I steal something from a shop, I take it away. If I make a copy, I don't take anything away. So, that's not stealing.
It simply boils down to this: something is labeled theft if you circumvent giving the producer money. For some media. And take a good look: it are the media that are much more expensive than they have to be, or carry irritating other means to make money. The media that are cheap in the first place are free for copying. If you would care to do so and not just buy the original.
So, it boils down to this: if the producers want to make much more money than is seen as reasonable by many people, they copy it and the producers scream bloody murder. If the producers sell their product for a fair price, nobody cares and the people who want it just buy it. If the producers make it mandatory to watch advertizing when you buy a DVD, I will cheerfully think of a way to circumvent that. And when downloading a ripped copy is the easiest way to do that, I will.
Sure, I will download and use stuff. And if I like it enough, I will buy a copy from the manufacturer. I even bought multiple copies of the stuff I really like, and I give them away to other people. And I think things like MAME and abandonware are great. If you cannot buy it anymore, it is free for the using in my opinion.
If the producers spend less money on lawsuits, copy protection, advertizing and lobbying, they could fire those people as well and sell their product for a fair price. And, as someone else said: if you don't buy it because you don't agree, you are in their statistics together with the people who downloaded a copy. They don't care if you don't use it, or if you use a downloaded copy. Boycotting it doesn't work, it gets you labeled as a thief to them. They only care if you buy it. Everyone else is "loss of market share due to piracy".
So, forget about all that. Just do as you see fit, just like they do. They demand you buy one and watch the advertizing, no matter if you want to or not, you want a fair product for a fair price. As long as you don't go copying stuff and selling it yourself, it is fair game.
The moment it is more convenient (or the only possibility) to download it instead of buying it (like CD's that don't work in the car), the producers are suckers and should suffer the consequences. You don't steal anything, they demand you pay much money for crippled products or worse.
The producers are at least as much a bunch of crooks as the people they call thieves. And as long as they only try to find ways to demand more pay for even crappier products and things like monthly subscriptions and pay-per-use to be able to demand even more money, they have only themselves to blame for it.
If I take a piece of paper and make a nice drawing, I'm being creative. If I take some painting of a great artist and draw a copy, is that stealing? Or, if I go to the library, take a book, put it on the copier and make some copies, is that stealing? Or, if I use a VCR to record a movie on television, is that stealing?
It will be argued, that all of the above is freely available. And if I borrow a book from the library, scan and print the contents, that's perfectly fine (lots of books are even freely available for download from the publishers, even works from current popular writers). But if you borrow a video or CD and copy that, it is illegal all of a sudden?
Why? What makes them so different?
Philips sells a recorder with harddisk, and they advertize it can record anything, and you can use it to skip all advertizing. There is even a mode that tries to do that automatically. Would that be legal? Because it can be argued, that viewing the advertizing is mandatory, so the producers make money. If everyone was to skip it, it is labelled illegal.
If I steal something from a shop, I take it away. If I make a copy, I don't take anything away. So, that's not stealing.
It simply boils down to this: something is labeled theft if you circumvent giving the producer money. For some media. And take a good look: it are the media that are much more expensive than they have to be, or carry irritating other means to make money. The media that are cheap in the first place are free for copying. If you would care to do so and not just buy the original.
So, it boils down to this: if the producers want to make much more money than is seen as reasonable by many people, they copy it and the producers scream bloody murder. If the producers sell their product for a fair price, nobody cares and the people who want it just buy it. If the producers make it mandatory to watch advertizing when you buy a DVD, I will cheerfully think of a way to circumvent that. And when downloading a ripped copy is the easiest way to do that, I will.
Sure, I will download and use stuff. And if I like it enough, I will buy a copy from the manufacturer. I even bought multiple copies of the stuff I really like, and I give them away to other people. And I think things like MAME and abandonware are great. If you cannot buy it anymore, it is free for the using in my opinion.
If the producers spend less money on lawsuits, copy protection, advertizing and lobbying, they could fire those people as well and sell their product for a fair price. And, as someone else said: if you don't buy it because you don't agree, you are in their statistics together with the people who downloaded a copy. They don't care if you don't use it, or if you use a downloaded copy. Boycotting it doesn't work, it gets you labeled as a thief to them. They only care if you buy it. Everyone else is "loss of market share due to piracy".
So, forget about all that. Just do as you see fit, just like they do. They demand you buy one and watch the advertizing, no matter if you want to or not, you want a fair product for a fair price. As long as you don't go copying stuff and selling it yourself, it is fair game.
The moment it is more convenient (or the only possibility) to download it instead of buying it (like CD's that don't work in the car), the producers are suckers and should suffer the consequences. You don't steal anything, they demand you pay much money for crippled products or worse.
The producers are at least as much a bunch of crooks as the people they call thieves. And as long as they only try to find ways to demand more pay for even crappier products and things like monthly subscriptions and pay-per-use to be able to demand even more money, they have only themselves to blame for it.
Bigus Dickus
Regular
Althornin said:
If so, it appears that I'd be in good company.
Notice that in one of the other examples I threw in the possibility of giving the stuff away for free? Didn't bother quoting that one, did you? Do you really think that the delineation between theft and non-theft should be the profitability to the alleged thief?
That is an utterly indefensible economic, moral, and logical position... and you think I'm the one that needs to rethink things? If so, here's some more hideously flawed analogies/examples for you to cast stones at, following your idealistic view:
I steal your car because I'm pissed at you and intentionally wreck it. I profit nothing, therefore I have stolen nothing.
I rob a bank and out of fear of being caught I burn all the evidence (money). I profit nothing, therefore I have stolen nothing.
I have a grudge against Coca-Cola because they fired my ex-girlfriend's dad's common law wife, so I steal their secret formula and publish it freely on the internet. I profit nothing, therefore I have stolen nothing.
I don't know the intricate legalities nor the most recent court leanings, but personally I do not think that should be illegal. As I said before, I do lean towards fair use practical solutions. In this case, if the business model of broadcast television is not viable (making profit by sales of advertisements) then it should change or be supplanted by paid subscription models (cable/satellite). Some would argue that this discriminates against the poor, but I'm not convinced that availability of free information broadcast should be considered a right... after all, they have to purchase a television to receive the signal.
As far as my personal opinion is concerned, time delayed viewing should never be criminal for paid programming. My suggested delineation of whether sharing that copy with a friend would be illegal or not is whether that friend also pays for the same programming. If not, he has no right to it at all. If so, there appears to be little technical difference in where the actual recording takes place.
If you stop looking at the profits generated and instead focus on the losses incurred, it becomes much clearer. If someone suffers loss through an action of yours whereby you take physical or intellectual property owned by them, you have stolen from them.
Bigus Dickus
Regular
DiGuru said:
Depends on whether the work is still afforded copyright protection, including the creation of derivative works, and what you actually do with your copy after drawing it.
Depends on what percentage of the book you copy and what your intended use of the copied pages is.
No.
You take money from the rightful owners in both cases. That's what you are stealing. In a free market economy all things (physical or information) have a value that can be equated, through a standardized monetary system, to other things of value. When you steal something from someone, the crime is that you are ultimately restricting their right to trade that thing for something of equal value (including money). Whether you steal a physical object, or devalue information, you are still ultimately causing financial loss, and it has nothing to do with how much you do or are able to make from the theft of the stolen thing.
Bingo. Glad you finally grasped that simple point.
Justification of your immoral and unethical practices by any means, I see. You know, I hate that my Ford truck beeps when I'm not wearing my seatbelt. I hate that they force me to endure that when buying the truck. So I will find a way to circumvent that (which might including removing a fuse or shoving a screwdriver somewhere). And if buying a stolen Ford that has already been modded is the easiest way, then I'll do that as well.
Do you not see the tremendous logical leap made there? I'm all for fair use. You bought the DVD, you should be able to watch its contents as you please. I'm allowed to rip advertising pages out of magazines that I purchase (last time I checked at least that was legal), even though it takes effort to do so, therefore I believe one should be able to rip advertisements from purchased DVD's and paid programming, even if it takes some effort to do so. And note that I wouldn't at feel like my "rights are being taken away"
if magazines started using heavier stock or tear resistant polymers for advertising pages if they thought lots of people were ripping out those pages. The underlying theme of this idea is that if you have paid for it you should be granted (in the purchase) certain fair use rights. If you did not purchase it, you have no such rights.Again, I'm in favor of practical legislation that leans toward fair use, but I don't deny the strong legal arguments in favor of curbing those uses in cases where nothing was paid for the product.
In general the whole topic of fair use is complicated, and in some cases I'm not sure there are any clear answers. It's probably best suited for another thread.
Downloading stuff is like sex: you can forbid it all you want, but that won't stop anyone doing it.
Really, it's like cheap Chinese goods. You can call anyone who buys that instead of expensive US stuff thieves, but that won't stop people from doing it. Especially not if the only difference is, that the distributors (who probably have it produced in China as well) make a lot more money when you buy the same stuff from them. They're "entitled"?
I rather donate money directly to the manufacturers themselves, if the distributors try to force me to pay them a lot more money for a more crappy product.
Oh, btw, did you know that more than half the price I pay for blank DVD's is a tax that presumably is distributed among publishers to recap profit loss due to illegal copying? So I have to download some stuff to get my money's worth.
8)
Really, it's like cheap Chinese goods. You can call anyone who buys that instead of expensive US stuff thieves, but that won't stop people from doing it. Especially not if the only difference is, that the distributors (who probably have it produced in China as well) make a lot more money when you buy the same stuff from them. They're "entitled"?
I rather donate money directly to the manufacturers themselves, if the distributors try to force me to pay them a lot more money for a more crappy product.
Oh, btw, did you know that more than half the price I pay for blank DVD's is a tax that presumably is distributed among publishers to recap profit loss due to illegal copying? So I have to download some stuff to get my money's worth.
8)
Bigus Dickus
Regular
DiGuru said:
If someone purchases a product, even one made in China, they are not a thief (so long as it is not a stolen object that they know is stolen, in which case their purchase becomes criminal as well).
I'm all for direct distribution sales models when they work.
Did you know that some of the taxes I'm forced to pay go towards paying law enforcement officials? So I have to steal some stuff from other people to get my money's worth.
Justification of immoral and unethical practices by any means.
Ah, well. Any law that cannot be enforced is just so much toilet paper that makes for a nice moral ground. Know where you stand, I would say!
But anyway, the argument is moot. Everyone does it. So, as a producer / publisher (depending on the market model), you can try to have it enforced by all means possible, or you can accept the obvious status quo and move on. Think of something that does work instead.
You could just raise taxes, pay publishers with those and give it all away for free. Or destroy the internet. Or disconnect the US from the rest of the world and make all websites run by the government. Or make single-use DVD's and forbid the sale of CD/DVD-R(W)'s altogether. Or have the police search all houses and computers regulary and try to throw everyone in jail who ever downloaded some intellectual property without paying for it.
Or just make good products and sell them for a fair price. Nah. Who would do that if they can get almost free money, enforced by the government? That way, you don't even have to make good products anymore!
But anyway, the argument is moot. Everyone does it. So, as a producer / publisher (depending on the market model), you can try to have it enforced by all means possible, or you can accept the obvious status quo and move on. Think of something that does work instead.
You could just raise taxes, pay publishers with those and give it all away for free. Or destroy the internet. Or disconnect the US from the rest of the world and make all websites run by the government. Or make single-use DVD's and forbid the sale of CD/DVD-R(W)'s altogether. Or have the police search all houses and computers regulary and try to throw everyone in jail who ever downloaded some intellectual property without paying for it.
Or just make good products and sell them for a fair price. Nah. Who would do that if they can get almost free money, enforced by the government? That way, you don't even have to make good products anymore!
