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Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload and piracy

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Re: Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload and piracy

#11

Post by boredguy8 »

warfangle wrote: post #9

> don’t yell and scream about how you’re losing business to piracy when your stuff isn’t even available in the box I have on top of my TV. I ran into this a few months ago. I was bored and slightly drunk from brunch on a Saturday afternoon, and got it in my mind that I’d catch up on the final four Harry Potter movies. Whatever. That it was Harry Potter isn’t necessarily the point. Three of these films - Order of the…

"I don’t get how this is hard to understand."

Because the 'other side' doesn't understand why you think they have to make it easy for you to buy Harry Potter 7.1 and if they don't, why you think you get to circumvent their processes.

You wanted to give them money on your terms. They want you to give them money on their terms. I think that sums it up.

Re: Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload and piracy

#12

Post by Lazare »

omonra wrote: post #6
twelvechairs wrote: post #4

> making money from art is not a human right. This is an excellent point (and paragraph) - I wish more people understood this (although it is probably scary to many in the startup community).

Is ability to charge money for any labor a human right?

Apparently not. :) Almost all countries have extensive rules limiting your ability to charge money for your labour, including but not limited to: * Minimum wage laws * Professional licensing laws * Legal bans on prostitution

Re: Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload and piracy

#13

Post by moe »

warfangle wrote: post #9

> don’t yell and scream about how you’re losing business to piracy when your stuff isn’t even available in the box I have on top of my TV. I ran into this a few months ago. I was bored and slightly drunk from brunch on a Saturday afternoon, and got it in my mind that I’d catch up on the final four Harry Potter movies. Whatever. That it was Harry Potter isn’t necessarily the point. Three of these films - Order of the…

I have a nice story, too.

Just the other day my Macbook died; "green light of death", i.e. it's not charging and not turning on anymore (presumably the battery is dead).

On the harddrive of said Macbook I have ~$300 worth of purchased iTunes movies that I cannot access anymore. I had never bothered to back them up because I was under the naive assumption I could just re-download them when needed. A service that I took for granted not only because I do it with their apps and music all the time, but also because most of their movies were more expensive than the equivalent DVD.

Well, needless to say, apple does not allow to re-download purchased movies.

I may still be able to recover that harddrive. But I'm most certainly not buying movies from apple anymore.

Re: Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload and piracy

#15

Post by nitrogen »

boredguy8 wrote: post #11
warfangle wrote: post #9

> don’t yell and scream about how you’re losing business to piracy when your stuff isn’t even available in the box I have on top of my TV. I ran into this a few months ago. I was bored and slightly drunk from brunch on a Saturday afternoon, and got it in my mind that I’d catch up on the final four Harry Potter movies. Whatever. That it was Harry Potter isn’t necessarily the point. Three of these films - Order of the…

"I don’t get how this is hard to understand." Because the 'other side' doesn't understand why you think they have to make it easy for you to buy Harry Potter 7.1 and if they don't, why you think you get to circumvent their processes. You wanted to give them money on your terms. They want you to give them money on their terms. I think that sums it up.

You wanted to give them money on your terms. They want you to give them money on their terms. I think that sums it up.

It is the responsibility of the producer to meet the terms of the consumer, or else go out of business.

Re: Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload and piracy

#16

Post by there »

moe wrote: post #13
warfangle wrote: post #9

> don’t yell and scream about how you’re losing business to piracy when your stuff isn’t even available in the box I have on top of my TV. I ran into this a few months ago. I was bored and slightly drunk from brunch on a Saturday afternoon, and got it in my mind that I’d catch up on the final four Harry Potter movies. Whatever. That it was Harry Potter isn’t necessarily the point. Three of these films - Order of the…

I have a nice story, too. Just the other day my Macbook died; "green light of death", i.e. it's not charging and not turning on anymore (presumably the battery is dead). On the harddrive of said Macbook I have ~$300 worth of purchased iTunes movies that I cannot access anymore. I had never bothered to back them up because I was under the naive assumption I could just re-download them when needed. A service that I too…

is that really a problem with itunes? if your house burned down, you'd lose all of the movies you had on DVD. at least with itunes movies, you can legally make backups of the files.

Re: Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload and piracy

#17

Post by vrdabomb5717 »

moe wrote: post #13
warfangle wrote: post #9

> don’t yell and scream about how you’re losing business to piracy when your stuff isn’t even available in the box I have on top of my TV. I ran into this a few months ago. I was bored and slightly drunk from brunch on a Saturday afternoon, and got it in my mind that I’d catch up on the final four Harry Potter movies. Whatever. That it was Harry Potter isn’t necessarily the point. Three of these films - Order of the…

I have a nice story, too. Just the other day my Macbook died; "green light of death", i.e. it's not charging and not turning on anymore (presumably the battery is dead). On the harddrive of said Macbook I have ~$300 worth of purchased iTunes movies that I cannot access anymore. I had never bothered to back them up because I was under the naive assumption I could just re-download them when needed. A service that I too…

This happened to me recently. I had nearly 2 TB of movies and TV shows on an external hard drive that decided to die on me when I moved it. After some messing around, I was able to coax the drive to boot up again and list files, but it takes hours for me to move the files off of that drive and onto another. Luckily, I buy my TV from iTunes, which lets me re-download everything onto another device, but those movies are lost forever.

I've been looking into other digital download options, but Amazon's not compatible on a Mac, and I enjoy watching movies in HD quality. I don't blame Apple for the restrictions that Hollywood puts on them, but I'm also not going to spend more effort than I need to to watch my movies. Downloading them is the most convenient way to watch, there are no ads, and the quality is amazing. I don't understand why this is so hard for the studios to get right.

Re: Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload and piracy

#18

Post by nantes »

boredguy8 wrote: post #11
warfangle wrote: post #9

> don’t yell and scream about how you’re losing business to piracy when your stuff isn’t even available in the box I have on top of my TV. I ran into this a few months ago. I was bored and slightly drunk from brunch on a Saturday afternoon, and got it in my mind that I’d catch up on the final four Harry Potter movies. Whatever. That it was Harry Potter isn’t necessarily the point. Three of these films - Order of the…

"I don’t get how this is hard to understand." Because the 'other side' doesn't understand why you think they have to make it easy for you to buy Harry Potter 7.1 and if they don't, why you think you get to circumvent their processes. You wanted to give them money on your terms. They want you to give them money on their terms. I think that sums it up.

Interesting. I think this points out a difference between my lifetime and my parents. Lots of thing (most of things?) were negotiated. I can't even imagine negotiating for something like a candy bar at the grocery store and I certainly can't even try to negotiate with the studios on a movie rental. This complete inability to show any flexibility by the studios (and many other businesses) shows that the inelasticity of the market.

Re: Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload and piracy

#19

Post by bostonpete »

there wrote: post #16
moe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a nice story, too. Just the other day my Macbook died; "green light of death", i.e. it's not charging and not turning on anymore (presumably the battery is dead). On the harddrive of said Macbook I have ~$300 worth of purchased iTunes movies that I cannot access anymore. I had never bothered to back them up because I was under the naive assumption I could just re-download them when needed. A service that I too…

is that really a problem with itunes? if your house burned down, you'd lose all of the movies you had on DVD. at least with itunes movies, you can legally make backups of the files.

Sure , but houses rarely burn down. Computers crash a lot. In fact, I'd venture to say that most (or maybe close to most?) computers end up in some state where their owners either can't or think they can't retrieve data from them. Based on the likelihood of this happening to their customers, it'd be decent to let users re-download media you know they've already paid for and been given access to...

Re: Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload and piracy

#20

Post by Sukotto »

moe wrote: post #13
warfangle wrote: post #9

> don’t yell and scream about how you’re losing business to piracy when your stuff isn’t even available in the box I have on top of my TV. I ran into this a few months ago. I was bored and slightly drunk from brunch on a Saturday afternoon, and got it in my mind that I’d catch up on the final four Harry Potter movies. Whatever. That it was Harry Potter isn’t necessarily the point. Three of these films - Order of the…

I have a nice story, too. Just the other day my Macbook died; "green light of death", i.e. it's not charging and not turning on anymore (presumably the battery is dead). On the harddrive of said Macbook I have ~$300 worth of purchased iTunes movies that I cannot access anymore. I had never bothered to back them up because I was under the naive assumption I could just re-download them when needed. A service that I too…

This is news to me. When looking at an iPad recently the guy in the Apple store told me that anything I bought on iTunes could be moved to a new device should I ever upgrade. So long as I have the same AppleId (email?)

What else is non-transferable? Books? Music? Apps? (Can iDevices do other things?)

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