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Obama administration: "Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft"

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Re: Obama administration: "Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft"

#31

Post by _ouxp »

leviathant wrote: post #22
Qz wrote: post #5

I keep telling myself, this has to be better than if we'd elected McCain -- right?

Back in 1999, there were a lot of people who took the position of "Doesn't matter if it's Gore or Bush, they're both just as bad." I'm pretty sure no one who had that sentiment before still holds that notion. It's a lot better than if we elected McCain/Palin, yes.

While I'm no fan of George W. Bush, it's hard to hypothesize about a past that never happened. So while not many people have that sentiment today, that's only because we picked one and didn't get to see what the other would've done.

Re: Obama administration: "Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft"

#33

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

Piracy is not stealing, not a serious crime, it is a different thing, and with untruth statements like this you are doing a bad favor to the industry.

I'm an author myself,and I see that as "the Prohibition in the United States". Exaggeration to this problem could backfire.

Copyright has been extended so much that is a flagrant abuse +70years from authors dead when it was 25 years from creation like a invention patent means a lot of people could seriously object to it, and win.

Is drawing Mickie Mouse a crime just because the corporations lobbied for it?

95% of the US population do and will pirate in their lives. Criminalization of piracy and sex means anybody could go to jail(it is so easy to put pirate cds in your enemy home and call police).

This population vote Obama and they could make him jobless on the blink of an eye. No matter what Obama says, if 90% of the people think something should be permitted(like drawing Mickie or copying a Beatles song they have payed four times) in a democracy, that is Law. If the president oppose, he can go home.

Re: Obama administration: "Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft"

#34

Post by fendrak »

byoung2 wrote: post #15

I hate it when people equate piracy with theft...it's copyright infringement, not theft. If someone breaks into my car and steals my iPod, that's theft. I, the original owner, no longer possess the item. If instead the "thief" breaks into my car and copies all of the music from my iPod (let's say that all of the songs are recordings of my band to make things simple) and posts it on several torrent trackers, that's pi…

The only problem with this argument is that it's made only with regard to you, the consumer, vs. the content creator/distributor. If theft is defined only as the removal of a physical good from one individual to another without consent, then indeed, it's not theft in that sense. However, if theft is defined as depriving an individual of what they are due for providing some product/service, then this is theft.

One way or another, somebody took the time to learn to play some instrument, write a song, record that song, then get it distributed in some manner. All of that costs both time and money, just like designing and building a car or a laptop or any other physical good. If depriving someone of compensation for something they worked to create and distribute isn't theft, I don't know what is.

Re: Obama administration: "Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft"

#35

Post by paulgb »

tptacek wrote: post #11
username3 wrote: post #3

> No one walking out of a Walmart with a stack of Richard Marx discs under his arm would be subject to such penalties. Penalties are higher because piracy is easier to get away with?

What does how easy something is to get away with have to do with anything? Technology makes certain kinds of securities fraud massively easier to get away with. Should we decriminalize them now?

I can't speak for username3, but the way I read his/her comment suggested the opposite. If a crime is very easy to get away with (like piracy), the penalties have to be higher to discourage people from doing it.

Re: Obama administration: "Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft"

#36

Post by AlexC04 »

byoung2 wrote: post #15

I hate it when people equate piracy with theft...it's copyright infringement, not theft. If someone breaks into my car and steals my iPod, that's theft. I, the original owner, no longer possess the item. If instead the "thief" breaks into my car and copies all of the music from my iPod (let's say that all of the songs are recordings of my band to make things simple) and posts it on several torrent trackers, that's pi…

| Since all of these songs are always instantly available | to me, these artists are still within reach, even the | one-hit-wonders from yesteryear. If I hadn't downloaded | Fastball's "Outta My Head" back in 1998, I would never | have gone to see them perform at the Viper Room in 2008 | (it was the illegal download of a B-side that made me | appreciate them more than hearing "The Way" on the | radio).

While that may be true that the piracy had an unintended benefit for the band. I think you're making an appeal to the fallacy "the ends justify the means".

In this case, the record label and by extension the employees of the record label lost out on their share of the $1 you should arguably have spent on the track. (assuming an itunes download at approximately market price).

So that works out to say $0.80 cents not paid to the workers at the store, the marketing department etc...

In the end, the band might have benefitted on balance, but in an alternative scenario, you PAID for that song, liked it and still went to see the band at the Viper room.

I'm fully aware that there are a number of people who violently disagree with me on this. In my own opinion, the question of whether it's "better for the music industry overall" or not is irrelevant. The people who own the rights to the music, own the right to decide whether it's OK to get the song for free or not. If that costs them a customer at the viper room in 2008, it's their choice.

"Theft plain and simple" is probably an overstatement - but (again, in my opinion) - there is definitely some moral ambiguity to this.

Let's imagine that for some reason at YC11 a band shows up. In their pitch meeting PG and team feel suitably Rocked and Rolled so he decides to throw in the seed money for their studio time. The terms are that YC gets to keep 80% of the money from record sales (come to think of it, this happened on an episode of Dragon's Den UK).

You download the song. Go to the concert. What happens to the share owned by YC? Do they make money? Do they deserve money?

I do understand where you're coming from... but I also disagree.

Re: Obama administration: "Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft"

#37

Post by ThomPete »

kscaldef wrote: post #24
ThomPete wrote: post #10

It's funny how the word Piracy is used. One has to wonder what kind of pirates we are talking about. The "Pirates of the Caribbean" type of pirates did loot ships, but what they stole where often goods produced by slavery and itself stolen from the colonies. Piracy or as I prefer to call it – copying is the result of a disconnect between price and cost. When you steal you take something away from others so it's not t…

There is absolutely nothing that states that it's fair for musicians or other artist to make millions by mass producing and distributing at almost zero cost. Is it fair for software developers to make money by mass producing and distributing at almost zero cost?

It's neither fair nor unfair.

My point is simply that it's not a right, it's a possibility.

Re: Obama administration: "Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft"

#38

Post by yummyfajitas »

leviathant wrote: post #22
Qz wrote: post #5

I keep telling myself, this has to be better than if we'd elected McCain -- right?

Back in 1999, there were a lot of people who took the position of "Doesn't matter if it's Gore or Bush, they're both just as bad." I'm pretty sure no one who had that sentiment before still holds that notion. It's a lot better than if we elected McCain/Palin, yes.

I suspect McCain/Palin probably would have been better - they would have spent too much time fighting with congress to do any real damage. The more they fight with each other, the less time and effort they have to go after us.

Remember how awesome the Clinton years were? Clinton and Biden tried to push their own Patriot act [1], and Congress hated them so much that they shot it down.

[1] Biden has described the Patriot act as being basically a copy of his "Omnibus Counterterrorism Act" from 1995.

Re: Obama administration: "Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft"

#40

Post by kyro »

I fully agree, and have yet to hear a solid argument in support of music piracy. Expanding your musical tastes and/or free marketing for the band are typically two very weak arguments, with the latter always unsubstantiated. If I copy your product and disseminate it to those clearly interested in it, I've definitely taken away some of your potential profits. You can argue that there are those whose interest didn't really compel them to purchase the product in the first place, so you're getting free marketing there in the hopes that they'll purchase future products, but let's be very realistic here, most pirates aren't spending more money on music because of their free access to music; they'll just occasionally donate to their favorite band. Of course, that's also a very unsubstantiated claim, but being human tells me that if I can get something for free with relative ease and little to no consequence, there's no reason to pay for it.
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