US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos • Hacker News Board

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#251

Post by loeg » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 12:07 AM UTC

rolph wrote: post #146

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of people who would watch a 'cam', but not watch the movie legitimately later, would have paid? If I had to guess I'd go What percent could, even if they wanted to pay, watch the movie legitimately in their country? Does it matter if you watch a cam if you're not even able to pay for the movie? The thing about movies is that they're also part of societal culture - in The West at least. In my personal…

camming is a concretely tangible theft. when a movie is being sold on disk after theatre showings close out, there is already a return for investments and disk sales are just gravy. disks are played many times lent out to family and friends watched in recap after the theatre and donated to thrift shops. a large group of people can "steal" by watching for free multiple times, but millions have been made in theatre wag…

I don't buy that any significant population watched extremely low quality cams vs paying $10-15 for a theater ticket. I think it was mostly a stupid risky prestige thing for sceners.

Theaters probably "lose" orders of magnitude more revenue to teenagers watching 2-3 films after only paying for the first ticket.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#252

Post by stallmanite » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 12:09 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #147

matheusmoreira wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Piracy destroys jobs, opportunity and initiative. So what? Let them be destroyed. I'd rather sacrifice some jobs than watch gigantic media conglomerates take over the computing industry and destroy our computing freedom with their DRM. There is no other way for them to enforce copyright in the 21st century so that's exactly what they'll try to do. They won't rest until every computer available to the public is lock…

Something tells me that if the fictional Star Trek "replicator" would suddenly be invented today, with the ability to copy any physical item, we'd see a similar story. Imagine, the removal of goods scarcity. Feed everyone on earth. Everyone could have anything they want just constructed out of thin air for them! It would be a utopia. But the same people would make the same argument against that utopia: "What about jo…

I think you’re right but I’d love to see them try to argue that pro-scarcity point to its conclusion. Why would we need jobs if the point of jobs is to get money and the point of money is to get scarce goods. The replicator would make the whole system obsolete unless the pro-scarcity side straight up admits they just want inequality for its own sake.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#253

Post by johnchristopher » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 12:38 AM UTC

a1369209993 wrote: post #194

johnchristopher wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, no. When I was a teen and wanted pirated games I had to put a lot of time into it (downloading/getting the CD's) then hunt for working cracks and then later deal with the consequences of installing cracks. My time was free but as an adult now I could never justify spending evenings to make pirated games work. Today's piracy is way more easier than piracy 15 or 25 years ago. The key selling point of piracy is th…

When I wanted non- pirated games I had to put a lot of time into it (pysically transport the CD's) then hunt for bugfixes and workarounds to get it running on my operating system and then later deal with the consequences of embedded malware (DRM) and workarounds that interfered with other software. Today's piracy is way more easier than any method of acquiring such games 15 or 25 years ago.

> When I wanted non-pirated games I had to put a lot of time into it (pysically transport the CD's)

Physically transporting the CD's from the game shop (which was an hour errand to me) doesn't compare to downloading for days or hunting that guy whose brother maybe had it on a random CD in his room.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#254

Post by smabie » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 12:44 AM UTC

Hitton wrote: post #39

mensetmanusman wrote: post #22

Would be interesting if our justice system spent as much effort on white collar crime, insider trading, financial misengineering, price fixing, etc.

There is no motivation for that. White collar criminals, especially the big ones are generally well connected, have powerful acquaintances, often know dirt on other people and mostly steal from either little fish and government (if they steal from corporations, there is often fault on the side of the corp. too and no one wants it to be very public so stocks dont fall even more) and their crimes usually benefit other…

What kind of people are you talking about?

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#255

Post by salawat » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 12:51 AM UTC

wittyreference wrote: post #244

matheusmoreira wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As always with the products other people are making, you have the choice to not buy them. That's how it works in the material world. Data works differently. Data is infinite. You can have as much as you want. Why would anyone buy copies when making new ones is as easy as copy and paste? Only the original copy must be paid for. So there is in fact a third choice to buying or not buying data: obtain a copy from someo…

> That's how it works in the material world. Data works differently. Data is infinite. Except you're not copying an RNG. You're copying someone's carefully crafted work, whose artificial scarcity is the mechanism by which they are compensated for that work. Unless you propose a mechanism for replacing that compensation, declaring "copying isn't theft" is just a fancier version of "I want my movies for free."

>Except you're not copying an RNG. You're copying someone's carefully crafted work, whose artificial scarcity is the mechanism by which they are compensated for that work.

Well, at least you're honest. It isn't about the work. It's about creating an artificial scarcity to profit from is it? Are you a Sackler by chance? Creating artificial scarcity has been a favorite tactic of theirs in the pharmaceutical realm. The fact is, IP was meant to act as a temporary halt or brake to the universalization of the fruits of one's labor. It is no longer that. It is now the means by which people looking to use something that is rightfully theirs by right of First sale is thwarted, or otherwise impeded through the loss of one's right to vote in the case of a felony charge. Something easy enough to make a case for just with legal fees.

People will pay and reward the producers of quality content generously. They should not be forced to toil beneath multi-generational periods of recurrent revenue extraction or encroachment into their everyday lives by an industry with every political incentive to disinclude anyone that would dare question their business model from political consideration.

At this point, and I say this as a creator and bread winner on the basis of furthering other entities IP portfolio, "Creatives" have overshot any semblance of charity and goodwill with the lengths they demand the rest of society bend over and resign to never having the whole of humanity or their countrymen uplifted by the advancements we hew from the rock-hard slab of the collective ignorance of our our species.

So take your deliberate straw man of "I want my movies for free" and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. I want equipment everyone can freely understand. I want no more capacity to hide aggregious ethical violations under the guise of trade secrets. I demand that the artificial ignorance and disadvantage of every Tom, Dick, and Harriet who haven't been able to get a straight answer about how to arrange and utilize their resources in a socially productive way because any privilege of getting a glimpse into how the macro-organism of society works gets shrouded behind legal vehicles intended solely to getter and entrench an edifice against any upset by those that compose it be cast off.

If anyone should be accused of trading other's rights for ideals, it's the copyright holders. They encroached first, and it wasn't good enough. So they've pushed, and pushed, and pushed some more.

Well. No more in my estimation. Work like the rest of us, or get what's coming to you, which sure as heck isn't the rest of society turning over and giving up.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#256

Post by ChrisLomont » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 12:56 AM UTC

anoncake wrote: post #203

ChrisLomont wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. But it's intellectually dishonest to equate a legal activity tied to breaking the law with illegal activity tied to breaking the law, especially when the illegal activity helps break further laws. People don't go into taxis to make profits by breaking the law. If they did break the law while securing taxi profits, then that becomes prosecutable, and should be pursued. People do pirate material because by breaki…

That's a silly question. Of course I think there are situations where a taxi driver should be jailed. For example, when they commit terrorism. Being a taxi driver does not justify immoral acts. That would be absurd. Illegal acts, however, don't need to be justified. The fact homosexuality was once illegal should be proof enough that doing something illegal is not a sufficient condition for deserving punishment. > The…

>The fact homosexuality was once illegal should be proof enough that doing something illegal is not a sufficient condition for deserving punishment.

That there is an example of a thing is no argument that all things follow that pattern. So what if some past law was bad. That is not evidence a current one is also bad. By that simplistic reasoning, if I pointed out a law in the past was a good law, I could then conclude this particular one was good too. But that's just as ludicrous as going the other direction.

Edge cases, by definition, don't apply broadly.

And as far as the law goes, yes, something illegal does mean something deserves punishment, under the law. You and I and our grandmothers may not feel our flavor of "deserves" is the same as the legal one, but that is the benefit of having laws - we don't all get to impose our feelings on each situation.

And, if society someday thinks some law has outlived it's usefulness, then society can change that law.

That you personally don't think this particular case deserves punishment is irrelevant to whether or not these people are punished, just as someone who wants to punish them even more than the law allows will not get their way.

>but they have about as much to do with copyright violations

Ignoring that lots of items that are counterfeited are also copyright violations? Anything copying custom code is a copyright violation, and a massive amount of products now have some programmed component.

> as copyright violations have to do with theft.

Nowhere did I make such equivalencies. Please stop with the dramatic metaphors - they're not relevant to the discussion.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#257

Post by CarbyAu » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 1:04 AM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #128

rolph wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at least wait until the material is being sold on disk, at that point any number of people can watch a single disk and the theatre has made its payday on screen when you copy theatre screeners or cam the movie thats poking a stick right in a sleeping bears eye

What percentage of people who would watch a 'cam', but not watch the movie legitimately later, would have paid? If I had to guess I'd go What percent could, even if they wanted to pay, watch the movie legitimately in their country? Does it matter if you watch a cam if you're not even able to pay for the movie? The thing about movies is that they're also part of societal culture - in The West at least. In my personal…

"The thing about movies is that they're also part of societal culture - in The West at least."

This is an interesting point. Moral correctness aside...

The content industries try as hard as possible to make their stuff "socially mandatory" via marketing. If they could make it law to consume their product they would.

So, socially: For as long as there is such a social pressure, there will be people who try to fulfill that pressure at least expense.

And financially: In a world where you have increasing financial inequality, the balance of people for whom it is "worth their time" to find a cheaper way becomes greater.

So I don't think piracy is going anywhere, until the motivations are gone. For that, "all digital copies are free" is technically feasible.(Again, moral correctness aside.)

But I don't know what the commercial world would look like to allow that to happen.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#258

Post by Silhouette » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 1:18 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #118

thinkloop wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only the original copy must be paid for. We are only paying for the original copy, but distributing that payment over many people and over time so it doesn't hurt as much - which single person is going to pay $10K or $1M or $50M for a song or movie?

> which single person is going to pay $1M or $50 million for a song or movie? Why not crowdfund those amounts instead? That way, all creators get paid before the work even starts and the result can be safely released into the public domain. We need to develop alternative business models like this in order to replace copyright. Cultural works must be treated like an investment.

We need to develop alternative business models like this in order to replace copyright.

Indeed. So where is the evidence that any of the alternatives anyone has tried so far can reliably come even close (within an order of magnitude, say) to funding the same quality and quantity of creative work as we support today through copyright?

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#259

Post by Silhouette » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 1:21 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #140

abakker wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that might be a great idea, except this thread started with the blanket statement that we should all just steal it, not invest at all. Maybe cultural investment can be coordinated, but until then, I think the solution should be for the distributed act of paying for what you want will be preferable. The less-than-optimal implementation of copyright doesn't justify theft.

> this thread started with the blanket statement that we should all just steal it No, I said that the choice to "pirate" was always available and that the way the copyright industry was trying to remove that choice was problematic. > The less-than-optimal implementation of copyright doesn't justify theft. Copyright infringement is not theft. Prevention of copyright infringement doesn't justify abusive and invasive DR…

Copyright infringement is not theft.

That's just a legal technicality. Either the viewer got to enjoy the work and the rightsholder got the corresponding money in their bank account, or they didn't. Whether a work was ripped before any payment was made, or the work was legally acquired but then the payment was stolen back from the bank account, the end result is functionally the same.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#260

Post by Silhouette » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 1:38 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #104

eueueuerurru wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Enabling creators to pay their bills by charging money for data will have serious consequences for society in the long term. Grr, the idea of a society where creators get paid a fair amount for their content just makes me so mad. Won't anyone think of the pirates?!

I have absolutely zero problem with creators who make a Patreon and get paid for their work through patronage. That would work even without copyright. The problem is copyright, not creators getting paid. In order for creators to get paid via the copyright system, artificial scarcity of data is needed. In order to create artificial scarcity, people's computers must be compromised with DRM so that they won't be able to…

You're equating the existence of copyright as a principle/law and the existence of DRM as a technological means of enforcement. They are not the same thing at all.

I could, physically, go drive my car at 100mph past a school, and nothing about the vehicle would prevent it. Everyone would rightly think me a dangerous idiot for doing it, and the police would probably arrest me, and I'd likely go to jail after being found guilty of motoring offences, but none of that requires the car itself to physically intervene. The likelihood of being observed, investigated, convicted and sentenced is, for most people, a sufficient deterrent even if they might otherwise be so cavalier.

The strange thing about copyright is that unlike other "minor" crimes, copyright infringement is primarily treated as a civil matter in law. The state typically will not invest significant resources in investigating minor infringements or punishing those who break the law. It is left instead to the rightsholder to protect themselves, yet the legal system typically provides no cost-effective means of doing so, nor does it provide access to the investigative powers that police officers or other government officials would have in connection with many other types of illegal behaviour.

The creative industries have fought back with technological measures like DRM and the related laws because, even though we all agree they are deeply flawed, they are also among the few somewhat effective tools that have been left to the legal rightsholders to protect themselves.