isn't that what we are doin when people go watch all the crap movies?
Send Them Your Money: A Campaign to Send The RIAA/MPAA Billions
91–100 of 135 posts
Re: Send Them Your Money: A Campaign to Send The RIAA/MPAA Billions
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Imho this argument that copying is not stealing does a real disservice to the cause. No, you're not stealing a thing when you copy it, but you are stealing the utility that it confers, be it entertainment, knowledge or whatever, that you would otherwise have had to pay for. You're taking value and not compensating for it, aka theft. This is so transparent and obvious a flaw in the assertion that no trained la…
This particular trained lawyer wishes that we could never talk about whether copyright infringement is stealing, ever again. It's 100% legally irrelevant. There are laws against stealing physical property. Copyright infringement doesn't violate them. There are laws against copyright infringement. Copyright infringement does violate them. The question of whether "stealing" is good shorthand for "copyright infringement…
Thanks for the technical writeup. Amusingly it really has embedded in it the very basis of the argument people are making when they say copyright isn't stealing. For example, no one would try to start an anti-trespassing campaign on grounds that it is stealing, they would be laughed at mercilessly. No one would try to start an anti-vandalism campaign on grounds of it being stealing. No one would start an anti-noise campaign on it being stealing. Yet all of these take away alienable rights, and are therefore close enough to stealing by your argument to justify it.
No the argument people make when they differentiate between copyright infringement and stealing is that perhaps the copyright bundle of alienable rights doesn't even make sense. They are saying this whole thing is talked about as theft but the fundamental situation is different, lets get the emotional word "steal" out of the picture. Instead lets call it what it is, and make a note of why these are different and why the rights granted and defended are perhaps outmoded and out-dated.
Re: Send Them Your Money: A Campaign to Send The RIAA/MPAA Billions
#93Seeing the title, here's what I was expecting to read: "They think illegal downloads happen because people want to steal, we think they happen because people what better digital distribution. Send them money [real, actual payments] so they think 'holy shit, look how much money we just got sent, think how much more we could make by offering good digital distribution'." Which would be a more interesting, more thought-p…
This is actually an idea that I've been kicking around for a couple of weeks. My idea is slightly more complicated, but this is the gist. I would call it a digital media consumer's union, where a person pays in a certain amount per month and then the total is allocated to the copyright holders proportionally to the amount that their media are consumed by the members of the union. Consumption statistics for music are…
Flattr is great and they actually do have something along the lines of tracking down people who aren't part of the system. You can flattr Twitter accounts and they will create a 'pending click' for that account which will only be processed if the person tries to collect the money.
The main problem I can see with your system is the difficulty in finding the appropriate person or organization to pay for every single file that the union downloads.
Re: Send Them Your Money: A Campaign to Send The RIAA/MPAA Billions
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're missing the point of marginal utility. Because the price of water is so low, the marginal use of water is not for purposes vital to survival. People water their lawns, fill swimming pools, wash cars, etc. In other words, they use water for things whose utility is equal to its current price, because there's plenty of water left over at that price after all the vital-to-survival needs are met. If the price of wa…
An introductory text - thank you, but I've taken microeconomics in college. After carefully considering both points of view, I tend to rather agree with Smith, for the following simple reason. Suppose the more frivolous uses of water were somehow restricted. (There are cities that do pass such regulations sometimes.) Its marginal utility would increase, but its price would most likely drop, due to lower demand. Alter…
> Suppose the more frivolous uses of water were somehow restricted.
Then you would no longer have a free market; people would be prohibited from engaging in transactions that they would have chosen to engage in without the prohibition. In that case, yes, price is no longer equal to marginal utility.
> Alternatively, consider that blood plasma and many life-saving medicines that have no other use are still cheaper than diamonds.
A better example, yes. I would tend to say the "market" in these things is not exactly free either. Somebody should ask Friedman about that one. :)
> And, for the sake of argument, let's agree with the marginalists. Aren't all the marginal values and costs for a digital creation, which can be easily replicated millions of times, practically zero?
Yes.
Re: Send Them Your Money: A Campaign to Send The RIAA/MPAA Billions
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but not so clear if Barney just copied the exact design and made his own Actually, I think it was quite clearly a good thing if Barney made his own copy and they both had dry heads. This remains true until everyone decides it's better for Fred to spend all his time designing hats rather than hunting, and we need a way to be sure to feed Fred. For this to happen we need technology to advance to the point where we ha…
>This remains true until everyone decides it's better for Fred to spend all his time designing hats rather than hunting Specialization of labor became widespread around 3500BC, with the appearance of civilization. After that point, potters, goldsmiths, tailors etc. kept on freely copying designs from each other and "got away" with it for over 5000 years. (In times when punishment for theft was often physical mutilati…
Potters, goldsmiths, tailors are all creating things, either solely or in addition to designing them. Their primary output is one of creation of a physical product, not of ideas. It's not until the means of production became very cheap that there was sufficient motivation to control the ideas themselves.
And I'm certainly not making any argument that there is anything immoral about "stealing" intellectual "property", I do not believe that is the case.
Re: Send Them Your Money: A Campaign to Send The RIAA/MPAA Billions
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Imho this argument that copying is not stealing does a real disservice to the cause. No, you're not stealing a thing when you copy it, but you are stealing the utility that it confers, be it entertainment, knowledge or whatever, that you would otherwise have had to pay for. You're taking value and not compensating for it, aka theft. This is so transparent and obvious a flaw in the assertion that no trained la…
This particular trained lawyer wishes that we could never talk about whether copyright infringement is stealing, ever again. It's 100% legally irrelevant. There are laws against stealing physical property. Copyright infringement doesn't violate them. There are laws against copyright infringement. Copyright infringement does violate them. The question of whether "stealing" is good shorthand for "copyright infringement…
Thanks for the legal analysis, always a welcome addition here.
> The useful question is whether the particular rights bundled into "copyright" are the best way to do the things we're trying to do.
Yes, the ultimate goal is to reform that, but I think the argument needs to be that there is a more optimal way of codifying copyright for everyone - content creators, consumers, and 'mashuppers' - that can create more abundance, dynamism, an opportunity for all parties.
But instead the prevailing argument seems to essentially be one of technological entitlement - that taking something for nothing without the consent of the creator/rights owner, at least as defined under current laws, has no consequence for the rights owner, and that it should be legal to do simply because it can be done.
No, it should be legal to do because there is ultimately more utility and value in it for everyone including the rights owners than under the old regime, so much so that they do it willingly like some are starting to experiment with now (NIN, Louis CK, etc).
That's the argument that must and can ultimately convince society, government, and Hollywood (or at least drag the latter to it kicking and screaming) that there is a more optimal copyright system. Spurious appeals to neo-entitlement will just fail there.
Re: Send Them Your Money: A Campaign to Send The RIAA/MPAA Billions
#97I was hoping it was something like this - you can donate $0.01 by credit card, and they will lose out (overall) due to merchant account fees.
Re: Send Them Your Money: A Campaign to Send The RIAA/MPAA Billions
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if Joe Blow watches Avatar and then comes to the realization that he's wasted 2 hours of his life? How shall that be recovered?
Should it be recovered? If you buy a product that you wish you didn't buy, wouldn't you normally return it? I see no reason for businesses to get money by basically tricking their customers into buying something they later find out it's not what they expected.
> If you buy a product that you wish you didn't buy, wouldn't you normally return it?
Consumer law in England doesn't let you do this. Many, but not all, shops do allow returns as a good-will measure. (Unless you buy online, where the Distance Selling Regulations give the customer remarkable rights.)
Doesn't "Buyer Beware" mean anything anymore?
Re: Send Them Your Money: A Campaign to Send The RIAA/MPAA Billions
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
>This remains true until everyone decides it's better for Fred to spend all his time designing hats rather than hunting Specialization of labor became widespread around 3500BC, with the appearance of civilization. After that point, potters, goldsmiths, tailors etc. kept on freely copying designs from each other and "got away" with it for over 5000 years. (In times when punishment for theft was often physical mutilati…
Potters, goldsmiths, tailors are all creating things, either solely or in addition to designing them. Their primary output is one of creation of a physical product, not of ideas. It's not until the means of production became very cheap that there was sufficient motivation to control the ideas themselves. And I'm certainly not making any argument that there is anything immoral about "stealing" intellectual "property",…
Good, I'm glad we agree about the main point. I don't even see that much of a difference between the creation of ideas and other forms of creation that it needs to be protected by costly monopolies. Writers, artists and philosophers have also flourished since the dawn of history without raising much ruckus about idea theft.
Re: Send Them Your Money: A Campaign to Send The RIAA/MPAA Billions
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Imho this argument that copying is not stealing does a real disservice to the cause. No, you're not stealing a thing when you copy it, but you are stealing the utility that it confers, be it entertainment, knowledge or whatever, that you would otherwise have had to pay for. You're taking value and not compensating for it, aka theft. This is so transparent and obvious a flaw in the assertion that no trained la…
This particular trained lawyer wishes that we could never talk about whether copyright infringement is stealing, ever again. It's 100% legally irrelevant. There are laws against stealing physical property. Copyright infringement doesn't violate them. There are laws against copyright infringement. Copyright infringement does violate them. The question of whether "stealing" is good shorthand for "copyright infringement…
Problem of course is that this is fundamentally not a legal discussion but a philosophical one.
It doesn't really matter wether it's 100% legally irrelevant. It's 100% philosophically relevant.