This Is Why I Pirate

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Some dude wrote an editorial on why he pirates things. Honestly, I'm not sure if this is meant to be serious, tongue-in-cheek or if he is making fun of people that justify piracy. I'll let you guys decide.

That is why I pirate: When I buy something, I want to be free to enjoy it however I like. I don’t want to be forced into “borrowing indefinitely” or only being allowed to play a movie through iTunes, on a computer. That is why I pirate: Because digital games, movies, and music are overpriced and don’t kick enough money back to the original artist.
Click to expand...
 
From the article:

In essence, copyright is meant to protect the creator of a work — be it a painting, book, video game, or movie — from being ripped off.
Click to expand...

No, that's not what copyright is. Copyright is a social contract, whereby society willingly grants a temporary monopoly to a creator, as an incentive for them to create, so that more works will available in the public domain than if nothing was done. Copyright has nothing to do with preventing of getting "ripped off".

He is right though that the social contract is broken, copyright laws today are not enriching the public domain.
 
I gotta say, whether it's serious or not, he makes a lot of good points.
 
That is why I pirate: When I buy something, I want to be free to enjoy it however I like. I don’t want to be forced into “borrowing indefinitely” or only being allowed to play a movie through iTunes, on a computer. That is why I pirate: Because digital games, movies, and music are overpriced and don’t kick enough money back to the original artist.
Click to expand...

I'd say that is pretty valid.
 
Whatsisname said:
From the article:



No, that's not what copyright is. Copyright is a social contract, whereby society willingly grants a temporary monopoly to a creator, as an incentive for them to create, so that more works will available in the public domain than if nothing was done. Copyright has nothing to do with preventing of getting "ripped off".

He is right though that the social contract is broken, copyright laws today are not enriching the public domain.
Click to expand...
Exactly, precisely this. Our public domain has been robbed from us gradually over the years. First, it was five years to public domain Five years was considered an adequate amount of time to exploit your ideas, even four hundred years before digital distribution existed. Then it was seven. Fourteen. Twenty-eight. Fifty, seventy, ninety, and now corporate works in the US are up to what...a hundred and twenty?

Media corps are looting the public domain and destroying the reason for copyright. If they have no respect for the purpose of copyright, why should anyone else?

We need to take back our public domain any way we can.
 
Because digital games, movies, and music are overpriced and don’t kick enough money back to the original artist.
Click to expand...

So it's better when an artist / song writer / software developer gets nothing?

Awesome point he makes!
 
"The problem with Netflix, of course, is that you never own what you watch; like Spotify, it’s a service that you must keep paying for if you want access to your favorite shows."

From the article...

This guy's kind of an idiot. I can just see him getting indignant... "Wait, I don't own all these thousands of TV shows and movies?! I just gave you $8 though"
 
I read this article yesterday and I didn't get the sense that he meant only the creator of a work (or the small guy, in a sense) but also the distributors and all the middlemen that are between you and that material.

He's quite serious about the article, Steve, and I agree with him on a good portion of it. I'm a firm believer in that if I buy something I feel I should be able to do with it as I please. I paid for it, it's mine now. I mean, take a look at this to see just how bad it's gotten. Seriously? Have we really gotten to this point?

Having friends that dev or have deved for major game studios, I can tell you they're swimming in money and their employees are overworked, poorly paid and are told to go home if they don't like it. They get a paycheck, so it's not exactly slave labor, but some of the hours that these guys work is insane (60 a week not being uncommon). These studios also happen to be some of the games you guys love the most. Knowing this, I'm asked to pay $60 for a PC game that I'll likely hate and read shitty game reviews convincing me I need to buy it.

I don't pirate video games anymore (not since the limewire days. In truth I rarely play anymore either), but I can certainly see why some would.
 
krogen said:
So it's better when an artist / song writer / software developer gets nothing?

Awesome point he makes!
Click to expand...

No, but rather than support the RIAA by buying albums through them, maybe more artists need to start independently selling albums and MP3 downloads. There is really very little cost involved to do so and you get all of the profit.
 
fattypants said:
Exactly, precisely this. Our public domain has been robbed from us gradually over the years. First, it was five years to public domain Five years was considered an adequate amount of time to exploit your ideas, even four hundred years before digital distribution existed. Then it was seven. Fourteen. Twenty-eight. Fifty, seventy, ninety, and now corporate works in the US are up to what...a hundred and twenty?

Media corps are looting the public domain and destroying the reason for copyright. If they have no respect for the purpose of copyright, why should anyone else?

We need to take back our public domain any way we can.
Click to expand...

Absolutely! Now we have got to get enough people to pay attention to exactly this!
 
because, as it turns out, pirates are usually super-fans that want to want to watch every movie, play every game, and listen to every B-side track created by their favorite artist.
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^this

I enjoyed the article as it said many of the things I use when trying to argue with someone about piracy. To make it clear that I am coming from only a slightly biased background, I used to pirate movies, music, and games when I was in high school, due to lack of money. Now that I have a job I have not pirated anything since. When an album comes out I like I buy it on Amazon. If I really like it I try to get it on CD or from the artist, like NIN.

However I am turning to piracy once more, and here are *my* reasons for doing so:

- If a record label backs censorship in any form (like those that support SOPA / PIPA) then I will no longer continue to provide money to these organizations.
- If after failing to receive the music direct from the artist after contacting them informing them that their record label has failed them, I will pirate their works and attempt to work out a deal to pay them the full price completely side stepping the record label.

Who does this hurt? Retailers. The unfortunate middle-man causality of this war. I want Target to get its share when I purchase a DVD or CD from their shelves. They took the time along with their logistics people to provide me with an outlet to obtain the physical item and deserver compensation for that. However because of the record labels failures the big loser here will be Target, because I will no longer goto them to buy an album.

The artist will actual be a winner here, because I will be providing them with a greater sum of money than they would receive otherwise.

Fortunately for me, the last 10 or so albums I have purchased have been from record labels that are *against* things like SOPA and PIPA.

If you want to support these labels here they are:

- The Orchard: (theorchard.com) and their stance: http://www.dailyrindblog.com/?p=10473
- Metropolis records (metropolis-records.com) Haven't found an official statement but some of their bands seem to be actively against it and it makes sense given their bands' styles.
- More as I research them.
 
After SOPA and all the related BS, the idea of a single penny of my money going to the fuckers that support that is enough to make me want to vomit.
 
fattypants said:
Exactly, precisely this. Our public domain has been robbed from us gradually over the years. First, it was five years to public domain Five years was considered an adequate amount of time to exploit your ideas, even four hundred years before digital distribution existed. Then it was seven. Fourteen. Twenty-eight. Fifty, seventy, ninety, and now corporate works in the US are up to what...a hundred and twenty?

Media corps are looting the public domain and destroying the reason for copyright. If they have no respect for the purpose of copyright, why should anyone else?

We need to take back our public domain any way we can.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but the public domain is now declared dead as by ruling from the supreme court earlier: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/01...t-upholds-removal-of-works-from-public-domain
 
That is why I pirate: When I buy something, I want to be free to enjoy it however I like. I don’t want to be forced into “borrowing indefinitely” or only being allowed to play a movie through iTunes, on a computer.

The above almost implies some kind of 'right' to 'enjoy it however I like'. If what you want is not available via a medium of your preference, you should be capable to at that point choosing not to obtain the music/movie, not justifying that you are now OK to obtain it illegally. You're definitely not 'forced into' anything.
 
Whatsisname said:
From the article:

In essence, copyright is meant to protect the creator of a work — be it a painting, book, video game, or movie — from being ripped off.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering what is the fundamental difference between "a painting, book, video game, or movie" and say a dump truck, a flavored beverage, or an air freshener :confused:
 
JosiahBradley said:
Sorry, but the public domain is now declared dead as by ruling from the supreme court earlier: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/01...t-upholds-removal-of-works-from-public-domain
Click to expand...
You are correct sir. And you have made my blood boil.

They've killed the reason for copyright, so I guess we don't have to respect it anymore. It's a law without a reason. Unmitigated theft from the public is what this is. Stealing from the public, when the public is the one protecting their monopoly of an idea. They want to steal from us? Fine, we'll reciprocate.

Copyright is not a one-way street.
 
westrock2000 said:
I'm wondering what is the fundamental difference between "a painting, book, video game, or movie" and say a dump truck, a flavored beverage, or an air freshener :confused:
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According to philosophy there is no difference given that they are all physical items. However you can not create an air freshener that is 100% identical to someone else's and sell it as your own. Credit is still due to the "first" person to do so. So in this sense the idea behind how the air freshener is produced is what is protected not the physical freshener. So when it comes to a book, copying the entire thing and selling it as your book is wrong, but you can still burn the book in a fire or break the video games CD in two. Once you purchase something it should be yours to do as you please with as long as you do not steal the credit behind the item.
 
Whatsisname said:
From the article:



No, that's not what copyright is. Copyright is a social contract, whereby society willingly grants a temporary monopoly to a creator, as an incentive for them to create, so that more works will available in the public domain than if nothing was done. Copyright has nothing to do with preventing of getting "ripped off".

He is right though that the social contract is broken, copyright laws today are not enriching the public domain.
Click to expand...

Willingly? Everyone is forced to do or not to do everything. If this weren't the case you would need laws and we all know a law equals an opinion with a gun! As for social contract, it's a made up mythological concept. Government is a monopoly of force in a geographical area and I refuse to accept some social contract nonsense. Its as irrational of a thought as believing in a invisible pink unicorns would be lol. But anyway, I just wanted to point out the gun in the room, that no one wants to talk about. :)
 
MissJ84 said:
Willingly? Everyone is forced to do or not to do everything. If this weren't the case you wouldn't need laws and we all know a law equals an opinion with a gun! As for social contract, it's a made up mythological concept. Government is a monopoly of force in a geographical area and I refuse to accept some social contract nonsense. Its as irrational of a thought as believing in invisible pink unicorns would be lol. But anyway, I just wanted to point out the gun in the room, that no one wants to talk about. :)
Click to expand...

/Fixed

Wow, lol I'm really tired and had no idea you couldn't edit posts in this section. Regardless, I do not believe in the mythological entity, called the state.
 
Software is also a mythological concept conjured out of thin air through the creativity of people. The idea of a social contract is not garbage, and you don't need weapons to make societies.

MissJ84 said:
Willingly? Everyone is forced to do or not to do everything. If this weren't the case you would need laws and we all know a law equals an opinion with a gun! As for social contract, it's a made up mythological concept. Government is a monopoly of force in a geographical area and I refuse to accept some social contract nonsense. Its as irrational of a thought as believing in a invisible pink unicorns would be lol. But anyway, I just wanted to point out the gun in the room, that no one wants to talk about. :)
Click to expand...
 
Whatsisname said:
From the article:



No, that's not what copyright is. Copyright is a social contract, whereby society willingly grants a temporary monopoly to a creator, as an incentive for them to create, so that more works will available in the public domain than if nothing was done. Copyright has nothing to do with preventing of getting "ripped off".

He is right though that the social contract is broken, copyright laws today are not enriching the public domain.
Click to expand...

Well the biggest problem is, although you said it grants a temporary monopoly to the creator, it is actually a very long monopoly to not only the creator, but to his estate after he passes. Thank god patents don't have such long terms. If every copyrighted material needs potentially 150-200 years to become part of the public domain, by the time it gets there, only a few will have any appreciation or desire to consume the material
 
Usually the people that can afford to buy things will complain about pirates but when they lose their job and the high income they will pirate themselves usually. 1 pirated download does not equal 1 customer. Thats what the industry has to learn. A lot of people just download for the sake of downloading or just to see what something is about. If there were a way to get a trial of the final product then that would be a good option for a lot. Theres always going to be that poor student though that can't afford photoshop or ms office suite. They aren't a lost sale though. It all depends on the context of the person. Trials and demos seem to be the past. Almost everything released before years ago had them but now its pretty rare.
 
I agree with all his points.

And yes, copyright should be used to protect the actual creator of the work. It's not the case anymore. It's all a big legal jargon process where artists are slaved into contracts and don't even own their own work. The entertainment industry is not very pretty behind the scenes. If anything, artists need to be the ones protesting this. If the artists simply stopped producing, these companies would go bankrupt... how they belong.
 
instead of their archaic dvd purchasing system, the mpaa should move into the digital age. i stopped buying music and movies a long time ago because i have absolutely no interest in having 100s of movies taking up space in my house. i also dont want to have to get rid of them all if theyre vhs, or in the near future dvds, as they become obsolete. they should have a download system like valve where movies are sold online in digital format. you dont have to keep the movie on your hard drive, but you can download it before you watch it so you dont have to watch a sd stream or deal with buffering. and if a new format comes out in the future, youre not screwed. in addition, instead of making yuo buy a shitty movie to find out its shitty, you should be able to watch half or even a third for free, then decide to pay for the rest. if the mpaa wasnt a bunch of asshats they could do this right now, and make SO. MUCH. MONEY.
 
Whatsisname said:
Software is also a mythological concept conjured out of thin air through the creativity of people. The idea of a social contract is not garbage, and you don't need weapons to make societies.
Click to expand...


This +1.

With all due respect to all software developers out there, and stating that I realize that chances are this kind of attitude comes from publishing house and not the creators themselves, they believe themselves to be so above the rest of the economical sectors of society and think they should be treated different from other industries, and intend (and pay for) laws to protect their products by effectively eroding any and all legal rights customers might have.

It's come to a point in which you not only do not receive rights to your purchase but a license to use, now they want you to no longer receive a complete product with parts of the software permanently residing on their servers (Diablo 3, Dark Spore), while they still expect you to pay premium for it.

I was going to post the bit about Anno 2070 but it's already been done, so, look no further, that's a big reason why people pirate software.
 
I actually agree with several points as i read it, and it generates all sorts of thoughts.

I cant count the amount of retail games i have purchased in physical copies that i am limited by the amount of times i can install or reinstall. With multiple pcs in my home, you wind up limiting me to which ones i play it on. i ran out of activation on a certain game, called support and they told me i could have one more and that was it. Offer me something to DEactivate my product. Otherwise ill go play some diablo,or tribes. maybe when your game is $5 i will think about it

I have never bought a shirt or any other piece of clothing that had a tag "wearable 5 times, not resealable. or bought in a thrift shop and was told "oh well its $15 more if you want to button it" whats next? used cars that top out at 45mph unless you buy a kick $$ back to the builder/dealership? Maybe they should sue people running garage sales. you cant resell that lamp!! That we allow you to use it is a crock of shit.

reduce piracy? reduce prices. the eternally broke will never pay but "social"downloaders will. Think about itunes (drm aside) or amazon. What if a song was .25 cents? would you buy more? a full album $2.50? Thats part of the appeal steam has realized. Wont sell at 39.99? special 3 day winter zombie brain fest sale price only $7.79. How many chances have you taken on a game under $5. I know i have. dvd's $2.50 Blu ray $8.99 So that movie you see in the mega store at $24.99 might be actually go home with you if it was $8.99

Copyright? Its a law for people/companies who can afford it. Made to protect the "people". show me some of those people. my fucking grandkids grandkids will be watching disneys mickey mouse and books going into public domain will be a thing of the past

Rather then driving away the actual purchasers they need to draw them in as a percentage will NEVER PAY. I could be 100% wrong and might be but thats the way i feel.

Ill shut up now:p
 
I read the article thinking I'd disagree with the fellow, but I pretty much agree with every point he raises.
 
krogen said:
So it's better when an artist / song writer / software developer gets nothing Awesome point he makes!
Click to expand...
No kidding. The guy's brain was half-off when he wrote this nonsense.

pelo said:
I'm a firm believer in that if I buy something I feel I should be able to do with it as I please. I paid for it, it's mine now.
Click to expand...
Then you're a firm believer in how things don't work on any legal basis when it comes to games, music and other intellectual property.
 
krogen said:
So it's better when an artist / song writer / software developer gets nothing?

Awesome point he makes!
Click to expand...

Gets nothing? They already get "something" from the game publisher/recording company before the game/song is released.
 
IO gotta tell you I think the article points out very interesting ideas. Like some of you have said already most people pirate things because they just can't affort to pay for them. I rarely download from pirates sites but i share my movies because in my opinion the moment i spent $25 on a movie that disk and the content is mine, and i do what i want with it. I dont understand why if most movies make millions more than what it costed to make, dvds are so expensive.
 
THe guy's an idiot. ET is a decent website, but Anthony is the sole reason I took it off of my daily reading list and de-bookmarked it. I may not always agree with Kyle, but at least he thinks his opins through first. This guy? Not so much.
 
Opps, Anyway, Copyright's not broken, the enforcement of it is, and those are two completely different issues. Over on The Verge, I answered a similar post that said:

...we need to preserve the power of communities, like the Vox Media communities, by explicitly expanding fair use to encompass a wide range of legitimate uses that do not erode the market for the original works: commentary, criticism, parody, remix.
Click to expand...
This doesn't make a to of sense to me, since protections for these sorts of works are already baked into copyright law, both in statutes and in the case law. It's asking the law to expand and encompass things that it already does.

Chapter 17, Section 107 describes fair use. IT essentially SAYS, that parody, critical, educational, and remixes are fair uses of original, protected, copyrighted works. Specifically, the statute even takes into account the effect the new work has on the original. That is, if the new work supplants the demand for the original, it is less likely to be considered a fair use (and even then it is not guaranteed to infringe).

US case law The Supreme Court has cemented the application of this law to parodic/remix works in the case of Campbell v. Acuff Rose, 510 US 569 (1994). In that case, a band (2LiveCre, lol) used the initial components of a Roy Orbisen song as part of a song used to parody the original. Think, also, about all of those weird Al and SNL parodies that have not been sued over. Parody and commentary and criticism are clearly and specifically protected in US law.

The one issue many proponents of copyright reform seem to pull out is sampling. There was a case (that escapes me) involving the Beastie Boys in which the court said (and has since been upheld) that sampling (taking and using the ACTUAL recording) is never allowed. There's an easy solution to this: play it yourself! Use garageband, or some cheap equivalent to play the same melody/beat/sound yourself and there is no claim.

Thus, I think that Nilay's claim (and one mirrored by many creative-content creators especially in the music business) that the law needs to be fixed is incorrect. I think he means that the enforcement of the law needs to be fixed. The DMCA, for example is really about the enforcement of existing copyright law. Little is in regards to actual new protections (the exception being for encryption schemes).

Take for example the DMCA safe harbor provision and DMCA takedown requests. The section is essentially designed to protect content HOSTS from liability for the actions of their users. In other words, YouTube will not be held liable for copyright infringing videos posted by its users if it plays nicely. That is, it accepts takedown requests from content owners and removes infringing content accordingly. This seems legitimate until you consider how YouTube covers it's ass: it does not consider any fair use claims, it does not actually look at any material claimed to be infringing, it just removes it, no questions asked. That way, when it finally does get sued by someone, it can tout this flawless record of positively responding to every single takedown request.

This means that even legitimate videos get taken down with no process. And since it is a private company, the 5th and 14th amendments do not apply.

SO my question (and translation of what I think Nilay may actually mean) is, how do you create a new enforcement scheme of the existing law that encompasses these fair uses such that:

A: The content creators have a mechanism for taking down legitimately infringing material

B: The pardists, commentors, critics and remixers have the ability to post legitimate fair use materials without risking takedowns or suits.

?
 
Modred189 said:
This means that even legitimate videos get taken down with no process. And since it is a private company, the 5th and 14th amendments do not apply.
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I actually agree with everything you tried to clarify except this portion. When an outside entity, in this case the US government, backs another 3rd party when they attempt to remove content from another private company, you are now in violation of the 1st and 5th amendments. The private entity may remove the content without violation of these amendments like you have stated, but if their hand is forced by another party that is when these amendments must be applied.

Here is quite an easy example to follow:

I run a website were a user post a video of them lip-syncing some song poorly. The user may be violating the copyright of the song that they are lip-syncing, but regardless of if this is true or not, let us say that company ABC asks me to remove the users video. Company ABC has stated that they own or have right to enforce the copyright of the song used in the video. As the site owner I can choose to remove the offending content or I can contact the copyright holder and or other legal authorities to determine if there is a problem. Now what happens when suddenly as a business owner I am forced to remove the user content, skipping the due process that I have requested ,before removing content without proof to its infringement? I have a right as the business owner where the content belongs to me, to request an actual legal injunction to remove my video, and this is where the process is broken. A party can request a DMCA take-down notice without actual proof of infringement. And when refusing to take action, the US government can step in without trail and violate my rights as the business owner, let us not forget about the user posting the content. Okay so the content is removed and now you have violated the 1st amendment rights of the user who posted the content. Of the 4 parties involved, the users and business owners are currently taking the biggest share of legal damage from how the laws are enforced. This is what needs to be rewritten. Like with any other law that is violated we must go through the motions to determine what the truth is. It is when we assume the law has been broken ahead of time that we fail to meet the constitution's guidance.
 
Piracy is a symptom is an outdated distribution system that corporations wanna hold on to. Simply put, media costs WAAAAY more then it really should.

Why do we buy $60 games? Cause STFU that's the price we set. The prices of media have no real control, and that's why piracy is out of control.
 
Ashbringer said:
Piracy is a symptom is an outdated distribution system that corporations wanna hold on to. Simply put, media costs WAAAAY more then it really should.

Why do we buy $60 games? Cause STFU that's the price we set. The prices of media have no real control, and that's why piracy is out of control.
Click to expand...

I am a little tired of the video game analogy, because of all types of media consumed games actually take a lot more to make than say, a song.

If you want a better analogy, why is an iTunes album 9.99$ when I can buy the physical CD from Amazon with S&H for 7$?

Not arguing with you, just I see 60$ for a game to be a rather discounted price for the amount of man hours put into developing them. CD's have always been around the 10-15$ price point and games have always been around the 50-80$ price point. Now that digital distributions are possible the price has not gone down and that I can agree with you on.
 
No, the copyright themselves are broken. The public domain is being destroyed, the social contract is broken. The laws, as they are currently written, are wholly evil.

Modred189 said:
Opps, Anyway, Copyright's not broken, the enforcement of it is, and those are two completely different issues. Over on The Verge, I answered a similar post that said:
Click to expand...
 
armand45 said:
This +1.

With all due respect to all software developers out there, and stating that I realize that chances are this kind of attitude comes from publishing house and not the creators themselves, they believe themselves to be so above the rest of the economical sectors of society and think they should be treated different from other industries, and intend (and pay for) laws to protect their products by effectively eroding any and all legal rights customers might have.

It's come to a point in which you not only do not receive rights to your purchase but a license to use, now they want you to no longer receive a complete product with parts of the software permanently residing on their servers (Diablo 3, Dark Spore), while they still expect you to pay premium for it.

I was going to post the bit about Anno 2070 but it's already been done, so, look no further, that's a big reason why people pirate software.
Click to expand...

Increasingly I am starting to view buying games as buying a service... Similar to how you buy a plane ticket which gives you the right to fly from A to B at a certain time, but doesn't mean you own the seat. 5 installs thats it, 1 flight thats it. I factor that into deciding what price I am willing to pay.

On a side note, here is an excellent well researched article about how bogus the MPAA and RIAA's piracy "economic costs" are:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/how-copyright-industries-con-congress/
 
Whatsisname said:
From the article:



No, that's not what copyright is. Copyright is a social contract, whereby society willingly grants a temporary monopoly to a creator, as an incentive for them to create, so that more works will available in the public domain than if nothing was done. Copyright has nothing to do with preventing of getting "ripped off".

He is right though that the social contract is broken, copyright laws today are not enriching the public domain.
Click to expand...

Um, dude, what he said and what you just said mean pretty much the same thing. You are splitting hairs.
 
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