Study Shows Piracy Can Sometimes Be Beneficial To Markets & Consumers Alike
from the another-form-of-competition dept
If you’ve been around Techdirt for more than a few weeks, you probably know that one of our core arguments is that piracy should be seen as a competitor, not as some kind of mad demon whose antics can only be thwarted by equally demonic countermeasures. As such the solution for piracy isn’t engaging in idiotic, harmful behavior (like copyright troll lawsuits or kicking people off the internet), it’s to compete with piracy by offering better, cheaper products that make piracy less appealing. And no, just because you think “competing with free” isn’t fair, doesn’t mean this entire paragraph isn’t true.
Numerous studies (including our own) have shown that you beat piracy through innovation, not scorched earth tactics. But a new collaborative study out of the University of Indiana highlights how piracy, at least in moderation, can have an actively positive impact on both the health of a market and consumers alike. More specifically, the study highlights how piracy can act as a form of invisible competition that prevents both a manufacturer and a retailer from jacking up prices at an unreasonable rate:
“When information goods are sold to consumers via a retailer, in certain situations, a moderate level of piracy seems to have a surprisingly positive impact on the profits of the manufacturer and the retailer while, at the same time, enhancing consumer welfare,” wrote Antino Kim, assistant professor of operations and decision technologies at Kelley, and his co-authors.
“Such a win-win-win situation is not only good for the supply chain but is also beneficial for the overall economy.”
The researchers are quick to trot out HBO’s hit show Game of Thrones, which has frequently been paraded about as one of the most pirated shows of all time, as a good example. In the researchers’ examples, they note that piracy prevents both the manufacturer (HBO) and the retailer (say, Comcast) from engaging in using their positions of power to jack up rates (double marginalization), since being too aggressive on pricing would simply drive users to cut the cord and engage in piracy, reducing overall revenues.
That said, the full paywalled paper makes it clear they’re not advocating for these companies to suddenly start embracing piracy, just to acknowledge that the impact of piracy on markets is not wholly negative, and therefore heavy-handed anti-piracy efforts may prove counterproductive:
“Our results do not imply that the legal channel should, all of a sudden, start actively encouraging piracy,” researchers said. “The implication is simply that, situated in a real-world context, our manufacturer and retailer should recognize that a certain level of piracy or its threat might actually be beneficial and should, therefore, exercise some moderation in their anti-piracy efforts.?
While HBO has had its missteps on this front (you might recall their efforts to “poison” certain BitTorrent files in a bid to make piracy confusing and untenable), executives have generally understood that piracy isn’t exclusively a negative phenomenon. Time Warner execs, for example, have noted how the piracy of Game of Thrones (and the countless articles breathlessly heralding this reality) is almost “better than an Emmy” when it comes to marketing their product. Much in the same way they see password sharing as a new form of marketing, not as some kind of diabolical evil in need of crushing.
That said, the researchers did note that with AT&T now owning HBO in the wake of its $86 billion acquisition of Time Warner, AT&T’s effectively now the manufacturer and the retailer in this equation. As such, it may be incentivized to crack down harder on piracy than HBO did previously (in fact it already is). Still, the researchers were quick to point out that there’s still other perks to piracy AT&T shouldn’t ignore:
?However, there are other positive effects of piracy such as positive network effect (i.e., the more people use the product, the more valuable it becomes) and learning (i.e., pirate users may learn about the product and buy the legal version later on),? Kim added. ?These are older insights from other papers. What we find here is in addition to those.”
Given this is AT&T we’re talking about, whether it gets the message is far from certain.
Filed Under: benefits, competition, copyright, economics, monopoly, piracy, studies
Comments on “Study Shows Piracy Can Sometimes Be Beneficial To Markets & Consumers Alike”
Nothing particularly "surprising" there, really. Anyone with a basic understanding of human nature and human economic behavior, and a functioning brain, could derive that outcome with a few minutes’ thought.
Which is probably why the big publishing interests have never worked it out.
Re: Re:
And why our resident trolls will drop in claiming this study is a load of crap, “because pirates”, “but copyright”, “ISIS!” or some other baseless and/or unrelated non-reason.
But yeah, while the results of this study seem obvious it’s always good to have something to cite.
Re: Re: Re:
I’m psychic! I should start telling fortunes for money.
Re: Re:
"Nothing particularly "surprising" there, really. Anyone with a basic understanding of human nature and human economic behavior, and a functioning brain, could derive that outcome with a few minutes’ thought."
https://wiki.laquadrature.net/Studies_on_file_sharing
And I count at least 20-30 easy to understand studies commissioned and made by impartial research organizations pointing out the same.
"Which is probably why the big publishing interests have never worked it out."
It is hardly in the interest of copyright enforcement to understand that tilting at windmills, chanting spells, and sacrificing goat liver to the gods may, in fact, not DO anything other than waste resources.
Have a heart. If factual truth was to be respected, who would pay all those third-rate copyright lawyers now that chasing ambulances isn’t so profitable any longer?
Re: Re: Re:
As Upton Sinclair famously put it, it’s difficult to get somebody to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"As Upton Sinclair famously put it, it’s difficult to get somebody to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it."
All too true. Something which should be obvious enough to any politician who chooses to listen to a lobbyist.
Which, i guess, in the end makes it ALL OUR FAULT for choosing to cast our ballot to politicians too incompetent or too invested to indulge in a proper amount of critical thought.
Depressing.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
When was the last time you saw a politician that was prepared to listen to and represent their electorate?
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
"When was the last time you saw a politician that was prepared to listen to and represent their electorate?"
Plenty of times.
Those politicians are generally considered "difficult" by the established parties and carefully kept from any major candidacy however, or deliberately crippled by a senate and congress scared shitless over someone with actual principles being in office.
just like in real life
Yep, I go through this exercise every time I need something done to my house or car. For example, asking a plumber to perform work, and comparing that to what it would take you to do yourself. If I do my own plumbing the plumber doesn’t call that piracy, it’s just competition. If they are overpriced, I’m more inclined to try it myself.
Re: just like in real life
Ironically, corporations use copyright to prevent you from doing things yourself.
Good luck fixing that john deere tractor, or your car… or your iPhone.
Re: Re: just like in real life
Those are usually done by contract, not copyright.
The reason has to do with branding and ensuring proper maintenance and/or legal liability in the event of an accident.
Re: Re: Re: just like in real life
No, they’re done by an abuse of the DMCA, forcing abuse upon you in the name of "copyright-protecting" DRM even though it has nothing to do with copyright. (Or contracts for that matter.)
The claimed reason has to do with branding, yadda yadda, but abusing copyright tools to do so tends to diminish the credibility of the one making the claim.
Re: Re: Re:2 just like in real life
DRM is a user contract as well as copyright.
The idea behind copyright is to eliminate the need for individual copyright contracts from individual publishers.
I definitely agree that obvious abuses of the DMCA should carry very stiff penalties, equal to those for infringement itself. The need to protect legitimate users of copyrighted material is made clear by the chilling effect of DMCA abuse.
My triple-the-price penalty would mitigate a lot of this. “Piracy” is not “infringement.” It is stealing. Infrignement is PLAGIARISM, which would justify the stiff copyright penalties. Simple theft of one copy of someone’s work does not.
Re: Re: Re:3
“Piracy” is the preferred term of corporations when they refer to copyright infringement; the word brings to mind the pirates of old and their illegal behaviours, which allows corporations to paint “pirates” (read: copyright infringers) as criminals of the worst lot. “Piracy” is, in this exact context, copyright infringement…
…and the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that copyright infringement is not theft.
wate wut
Assume a digital copy of a book to which I own the copyright sits on a webserver I own and operate. You happen to find that file through some sort of Internet black magic and save a copy of the book to your hard drive. Now, for all the marbles, here is The Question That Needs Answering™: What, if anything, did you steal?
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
In your scenario, the internet user stole the digital copy of the work and the money you would get from a purchase. That they wouldn’t have paid for it anyway doesn’t change that they “purchased” it since if they wouldn’t have paid for it, they have no legal right to download it.
I’m saying that what we call copyright infringement is more like a theft of a copy of a book (downloading). True infringement would be if you wrote a work identical to mine and passed it off as your own. That’s plagiarism. Simple theft of one copy of the work is not infringement. It is petty theft.
There was once a glitch in Paypal that allowed users to pay $0.01 for something. It’s since been fixed, but users who did that were likely stealing.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Nobody is saying the person who didn’t pay for a copyrighted work has a right to download it. What reasonable people are saying is that there was no monetary loss to the copyright owner.
That download is not the equivalent of taking money from the copyright owner. If the work was not available for (illegal) download that same person would not have instead purchased the work. The work downloaded does not have inherent monetary value as a physical good does. It cost the owner nothing for the pirate to download their copy from some 3rd party (or pile of 3rd parties as in torrent).
If someone took a book from a bookstore without paying for it that is theft, plain and simple. Someone had to pay to print that book, warehouse it, ship it, stock it and inventory it. Actual cost was incurred in making that book available for sale.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Why would people steal something they don’t want? The desire to take the work is actually prime facie evidence that the user values it, despite claims they wouldn’t have purchased it.
Loss of control over who reads the work (i.e., paying customers) is also protected under the law. Loss of value to the paying customers, since price discrimination is illegal under antitrust law. Why should anyone have to pay for what a pirate takes? That’s not fair to paying customers.
Loss of bandwidth has a slight monetary value, but again that loss need not be proven to prosecute.
I’m sure the “no skin off your back” defense could be used in many cases. It just doesn’t hold sway in the courts.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
Wrong question, as quite often it is try before you buy, and naturally many tries result in meh, but some result in yes.
Back in the days of vinyl, people often borrowed albums by artists they were unfamiliar with, as a means of making a decision of what to buy.
Authors never had that control with paper books, as most books were read by two or more people, and then resold in the second had market.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
Or with any other form of media, really. VHS tapes, cassettes, DVDs, videogames — you name it, people lent it out to/experienced them with friends who never paid a dime for those copies.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
"Why would people steal something they don’t want? The desire to take the work is actually prime facie evidence that the user values it, despite claims they wouldn’t have purchased it. "
I assume you’re a functioning adult human, so you actually already know how fundamentally flawed this argument is, even if you don’t realise it. You make decisions everyday on whether something is worth paying for and how much. You might decide not to buy something you want, but change your mind when the price drops. You might decide not to pay to see a movie that looks interesting but watch it when it comes to a streaming service. Piracy is a choice based on how much you value the content. The reason the likes of Netflix and Spotify are successful at reducing piracy rates is because they offer consumers far better value for money than traditional means of distribution and a far better experience than piracy.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
"Loss of control over who reads the work (i.e., paying customers) is also protected under the law."
If that was true then public libraries wouldn’t exist, and copyright exceptions such as any of the "fair use" laws would not be either required or accepted.
The truth is that the legal paradigm of copyright in general tacitly acknowledges that imposing copyright legislation provides the copyright holder with authority at the cost of stealing everyone elses authority to dictate what they do with their own property.
Making a copy of a file merely means that – making a copy. Nothing is stolen. And the logical argument as to otherwise would by inevitable extension mean that no one should be allowed to cook or craft at home either, for fear that their work would be sufficiently identical to a pre-existing creation as to result in "infringement".
The only thing really keeping copyright afloat in the digital era is the normal inertia of government in realizing that you can’t de-invent modern technology merely to favor the livelihoods of a minority industry which has had a good run until redundancy hit.
Society will eventually rid itself of copyright as it currently functions the same way the stagecoaches, blacksmiths and textile workers had to accept industrialization and the automobile had effectively diminished their market viability.
In that respect copyright holders have two options – roll with it, trim sails, and adapt to a more functional paradigm…
…or, as it seems to pan out right now, let that window of opportunity pass and cling to the old ways with whitening knuckles until the "S.S. Copyright" slips beneath the waves with all passengers still on board.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Not true. The loss is exactly when the work is consumed without being paid. That’s an actual loss because removes the possibility of being paid. Remember, these are "intellectual" works: they don’t actually exist except in the mind. But in order for the creator to eat and produce more, we have a system in which people are morally obliged to pay. You pirates are removing morality from economics, which is always bad. You have taken backward steps to savagery.
Here’s the return to savavery that ol’ Gwiz wants:
"But not the natural rights to copy and distribute. Those existed prior to copyright law and exist with or without copyright. Copyright restricts those rights by law, that’s all. Once a work is released beyond the original author, the natural rights of copying and distribution exist. Period. The only way to truly restrict those rights on a particular work is to lock that work in your bottom desk drawer and never let anyone else see it."
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20130116/09224321702/just-as-many-musicians-say-file-sharing-helps-them-as-those-who-say-it-hurts.shtml#c2063
Note the ultimatum: "Me take for FREE or you keep it hid and get no money." — The US Constitution’s Copyright Clause exactly refutes Gwiz by protecting the intellectual works of civilized folk from his raw savagery.
Ol’ Gwiz’s notion of "natural rights" there is no more complicated or civilized than to hit over the head with a club. — But the brazenly thievish fiend demands full "due process" protect HIM if caught! He wants HIS "natural rights" to exist in midst of our civilized society without HIM being hampered, only those of us who obey the rules.
Gwiz has no compunction — with the gadgets and in the leisure that rational cooperation provides us — about taking a person’s work, time, brains, money, opportunity costs, and so on, in order to enjoy without paying.
Gwiz is not a trader, he’s a pirate.
Is that what you want? "Natural rights" instead of civilized conventions of paying creators?
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
Actually, i can contradict the idea that consuming the work with out payment prevents the possibility of sale. Techdirt has pointed out several studies that show that pirates on average spend more on content than non-pirates.
I was poor. I pirated audiobooks to manage long public transit commutes. I now am not poor. I have now, over time, purchased every audiobook I consumed in that time. and hundreds more. over 300 from audible alone. It was my time as a pirate that convinced me i wanted to pirate.
Now here’s the best part. I am still a pirate. I would prefer to pay for my content, digitize it, collect it on my personal plex server, and enjoy my legal content library. Lots of it is unavailable. Or has cumbersome DRM locking content down to platform and formats I do not wish to use. So i buy content, but consume the pirated version of that content. It was not a loss of a sale. I just wanted a convienent format.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
The possibility of being paid is not the same thing as being paid.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
"The possibility of being paid is not the same thing as being paid."
It is in the minds of copyright adherents. The official view of copyright enforcers remains that the cost of file sharing as a result of the Pirate Bay torrent index pre-2010 alone is 42 times the amount of money existing in the world.
There’s a reason I use the term "Copyright Cult". Their reality-denying rants are based on faith and opinion in the unobservable immaterial to a point which couldn’t even be matched by the medieval church.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
Not true. The loss is exactly when the work is consumed without being paid. That’s an actual loss because removes the possibility of being paid.
So… libraries "steal" from authors as well by lending out books? Is borrowing a book creating a "loss"?
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
"So… libraries "steal" from authors as well by lending out books? Is borrowing a book creating a "loss"?"
That was the argument when the library was invented, along with the now well-known argument that "No one would ever again publish a book".
https://falkvinge.net/2011/02/08/history-of-copyright-part-4-the-us-and-libraries/
An earlier article in that series describes the same tired old argument posed when gutenberg’s printer threatened scribecraft several centuries earlier.
Copyright enforcement today shares VERY many traits with the medieval church, not least the belief in the immaterial rights for properly vested clergy to be the only ones to be allowed to transcribe and copy. Because <faith-based argument>.
Re: Re: Re:5
Three things.
I bet you expect me to argue with you on this point. Sorry to disappoint you, but I agree: Just because they had no intention of ever paying for a copy of my book does not give them the legal right to illicitly download a copy.
The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that copyright infringement is not theft: “[I]nterference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: ‘[…] an infringer of the copyright.”¹
No, that would be both copyright infringement (I infringed upon the copyright you hold on your work) and plagiarism (I copied your work word-for-word and tried to pass it off as mine). Plagiarism can technically be copyright infringement, but copyright infringement is not necessarily plagiarism.
If we were talking about a physical copy of a work, you would be correct. But illegally copying a digital file is not theft, for nothing is stolen in the act. An extra copy of the file is created, yes, but the “master copy” remains in the possession of the copyright holder, who can continue to control legal distribution of any further digital copies. The copyright on that work is infringed, yes, but control of the copyright remains with its holder, and they are never wholly deprived of using the copyrighted work or exercising the exclusive rights granted to them by copyright.
Copyright infringement is illegal. In rare cases, it can even be an act that is brought before a court of criminal law. But it is not theft, and you have offered no convincing arguments that prove it is.
¹ – Dowling v. United States, 1985
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
The small amount of bandwidth on the server is stolen. That is a fixed resource.
Paying customers are then being charged more than the pirates. That’s price discrimination, and illegal under antitrust law.
Unauthorized access to a protected computer is a federal crime, and electronic trespassing is as well, and also a tort.
Copyright law does not require a monetary loss to give rise to a prosecution, so what is being argued here?
What is the endgame here? What should change? Under the law the person who steals a digital copy of a work can be punished by five years in federal prison. The deterrent created by this law would be lost, and cause more piracy.
There’s a reason copyright law is as strong as it is. These debates come down to where or not piracy is acceptable collateral damage for leaving the internet status quo intact.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
And a miniscule one, at best. One person downloading a single, small digital file is not the kind of massive loss that requires million-dollar lawsuits to recoup.
Paying customers pay money to legally own a copy of a work and to support the original artist/the copyright holder. Pirates do neither. Besides, like you said, “piracy” is a crime; since when do we prosecute/sue copyright holders for the crimes of others?
Yes, it is.
As I said before: “Copyright infringement is illegal. In rare cases, it can even be an act that is brought before a court of criminal law. But it is not theft[.]”
We can start with sending the idea of “copyright infringement is always 100% analogous to an act of theft” to Hell, then work our way out from there.
How small an act of copyright infringement should be punished with a five-year stint in federal prison? How many people should be punished with that exact sentence for the act in question? How sure are you that you have never once committed even an accidental act of infringement, such that you would never be subjected to the same punishment you wish to have inflicted upon others?
Ultra-wealthy multinational corporations paid a shitload of money to a bunch of politicians so that copyright would be strengthened in such a way that said corporations could sue someone into oblivion for even the most accidental act of infringement — and so the copyrights that were infringed upon would last well beyond the lifetimes of the people whose works are being covered by those copyrights. That’s the reason.
You can allow the Internet to exist as-is and accept that “piracy” will always happen in some form, or you can try to stomp out all piracy everywhere and change the Internet into something far, far more restricted in both purpose and functionality. Make your choice.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
"You can allow the Internet to exist as-is and accept that “piracy” will always happen in some form, or you can try to stomp out all piracy everywhere and change the Internet into something far, far more restricted in both purpose and functionality. Make your choice."
It has to be noted that in order to stamp out piracy or even significantly hinder it you would actually have to prohibit ownership of personal computers, forbid people from learning how to program, and reduce the internet to the point where none of the current commercial actors – banks, corporations, private citizens and personal communication – could use it at all.
Not that this argument is accepted by technologically illiterate copyright cultists who insist there’s a magical solution to be found which will somehow prevent people from transferring only certain sets of data.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
What was stolen was the government monopoly on distribution. These monopolies are sold on, and violating copyright equates with depriving the copyright holder of that monopoly.
Of course, it’s not a clean theft, more vandalism, because the copyright violator generally doesn’t then hold the monopoly themselves, but instead they destroy the monopoly so that anyone can use the work.
The copyright violators that get attacked by the courts (as opposed to a select group of rights holders) tend to be those who violate copyright for the express purpose of profiting off of sharing a monopoly they have no right to.
This is different from violators who take something with a state-granted monopoly on distribution and then distribute it to everyone.
To reiterate: the goods distributed don’t decrease in value due to pirating/unlawful distribution/whatever you want to call it — it’s the monopoly grant itself that decreases in value.
This is why the likes of the RIAA and MPAA are so upset with copyright infringers; their entire business model is based upon forcing manufacturers to give up their copyright in exchange for money, with the understanding that by limiting distribution, they can charge much more for access to the product than they paid for the monopoly.
Re: Re: Re:5
Even the Supreme Court knows better than you. From Dowling v. United States: “The infringer of a copyright does not assume physical control over the copyright nor wholly deprive its owner of its use.”
Because it isn’t a theft at all.
If that were true, copyright would not exist and all works would be in the public domain, as all that would be required for a work to have its copyright “destroyed” would be for a single illicit copy — just one! — to exist. But that is not the case. You can find “pirated” copies of Steamboat Willie if you look hard enough; Disney still owns control over, and has the right to enforce, that film’s copyright.
Yes, criminal copyright infringement is typically (but not always) for-profit infringement. Such infringers should be brought to trial in the criminal courts.
Except, no, that is not the case. If Disney wanted to sell the copyrights on both Chip’n’Dale Rescue Rangers and the animated version of Aladdin, whether both works have been pirated (and they have) would not determine the value of those copyrights — the perceived value of the properties themselves would do that. And I doubt the fact that Aladdin has been pirated to a greater extent than has Rescue Rangers would matter more to potential buyers of those copyrights than would the difference in perceived value between one of the most successful and beloved animated films ever (that just so happens to be getting a live-action remake) and a halfway-decent 65-episode cartoon from the very late ’80s/very early ’90s that has effectively laid dormant for nearly thirty years.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
“Of course, it’s not a clean theft, more vandalism, because the copyright violator generally doesn’t then hold the monopoly themselves, but instead they destroy the monopoly so that anyone can use the work.”
The government grants a LEGAL monopoly not a PHYSICAL monopoly. The legal monopoly can’t be removed by anyone except the government.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
"The government grants a LEGAL monopoly not a PHYSICAL monopoly. The legal monopoly can’t be removed by anyone except the government."
The problem with this argument is that it won’t affect copyright adherents who usually have problems with object permanence.
In all too many of the pro-copyright posters the first issue to address is the fact that to them the immaterial and the physical are one and the same. This makes moving the argument past a certain point as tricky as trying to persuade a two year old that the six foot candy bear they dreamed about isn’t. in fact, real.
Re: just like in real life
It’s more like asking the plumber to do the work first on a promise that you’ll pay for it if you like it, and keep it regardless.
Re: Re: just like in real life
Actually, no.
The plumber hasn’t spent time and spare-parts on the job which means he isn’t owed a cent.
On another note, the plumber analogy sucks since it doesn’t reflect what really happens.
Re: Re: Re: just like in real life
That’s what I meant: my analogy is closer to copyright infringement than his. I know his doesn’t deal with that.
There really is no justification for piracy other than the argument that it is acceptable collateral damage for enabling the internet to function as it currently does. That may very well be the case, though there are many fine people on both sides of this debate.
Piracy is a FEDERAL CRIME, not “competition.”
“I am stealing your work and breaking the law for your own good” has a hollow ring to it.
Courts have not recognized that piracy has no negative impact on the market-value of the original, a fair-use test. It is certainly not fair for some to have to pay for work that others have stolen.
Search engines who use opt-out exclusion via robots.txt claim they are helping the sites from whom they siphon content, yet if that were the case, an opt-in search engine that complies with the law would attract all of these sites.
Piracy in this case is being treated as a free sample, which many authors and musicians give. Authors on talk shows often say that their new book can be downloaded for free for the next twenty-four hours, and people flock to do that, with a demonstrably positive impact on sales (or they presumably wouldn’t do it). Piracy, of course, is ongoing, beyond the free-trial phase, and is ILLEGAL.
If a creator wants to give a free sample, they can do so on their own, without being extorted by pirates. Copyright law protects lots of works, not just creative. Textbooks, technical writing, board games, software (which had to tie the programs to the internet to prevent it, one of the reasons DOS had to die and there is no 16-bit emulator in Windows), and a host of other works, including advertising copy. To erode it is to wreak havoc on much more than just “big corporations” in the entertainment industry.
The fundamental battle here is between copyright law and the internet as we know it. Some say that copyright law needs to change because enforcing it on the internet would destroy the internet as we know it, while others say that keeping the internet as it is would destroy copyright as we know it. The difference is that Copyright has constitutional protection (due to what was done with printing presses in that era), while the internet companies have no such legal leg on which to stand.
The position in the article is tantamount to an argument against copyright itself. Just like if we’re going to have Section 230, we might as well abolish libel law (which would actually have a more positive impact than 230), if we’re going to allow piracy, we should abolish all copyright law, and level the playing field for everyone. Obviously, we won’t do that.
Copyright creates enormous numbers of jobs and a huge amount of tax revenue for governments, which is why it has such incredible protection. It incentivizes creation. If one says “lousy work deserves to be stolen,” or “big corporations exploit creators” (they don’t), that is an argument for selective copyright protection.
If people can pirate my work, I should be allowed to pirate Disney’s and create derivative works from their characters. That would be a level playing field. Allowing pirates to pick on the little guys (the ones the article seems to claim need protection) is certainly not the answer, but that’s the reality we have now.
Re: Level of Understatement: EXPERT!
I’ve been looking in on Techdirt over course of nearing nine years now, and though I’m "informed" that Masnick "supports copyright", the daily actuality is attack after attack with any anomaly and any hook, while lauding pirates, defending pirate sites with links to infringing content as "free speech", wrongly predicting court cases for pirates, and like I note below, NOT reporting the bad news as Torrent Freak does.
Re: Re: Level of Understatement: EXPERT!
I think Masnick is more pro-internet-status-quo than anti-copyright.
Re: Re:
Three things.
Re: Re: Re: Level of Understatement: EXPERT!
Can’t when you add requirement for "irrevocable". I believe that’s impossible: Google for instance, wants a return to royalty with us as slaves. Show me where you’ve called for the "irrevocable abolition" of, oh, xenophobia, today’s topic. Evidently, by your logic, you’re actually FOR xenophobia.
Not true. Any number of anomalies can show up in complex systems and yet prove nothing. I example that daily millions of instances in which copyright provides deserved value to creators. — Masnick USES every anomaly he can find to attack copyright, is my point.
Agreed. Though I’ve no idea why you would think it relevant, nor even suspicion that you do: it’s probably just phrase that sounded good in your mind, but looks stupid on screen.
Re: Re: Re:2
Okay, remove that requirement. Show me where he has advocated for the complete abolishment of copyright. And it has to be clear, without any willful misinterpretation on your part, that he openly advocated for the abolishment of copyright law.
I get the feeling that if a large number of people — let’s say, a few hundred thousand — could provide stories that you would individually write off as “anomalies”, you would still write off the totality of their experience as “anomalous” simply because it does not fit the narrative you want us to believe. You do not want to admit these stories are becoming more commonplace because to do so would undermine your worldview that artists who can make a decent living from their work without going through major corporations and without enforcing their copyrights in as Draconian a manner as possible are just “anomalies”, “one-offs”, or whatever condescending term you can think of to describe them.
And if you could come up with counterarguments for those “anomalies” that are not just “fuck Mike Masnick”, “fuck Google”, or “fuck these little pissant artists who aren’t even billionare shithead rock stars” — and present them without all the holier-than-thou condescension and baseless insults — maybe you might be worth listening to more than him.
You make it relevant when you discuss the stories you want him to publish and act as if his doing so would make you happier than if you had gotten laid by your favorite porn star. You seriously come off as someone who gets sexually excited by the notions of “pirates getting what’s coming to them” and “Mike finally published something I demanded he published a week ago”. If that gets you off, whatever, but let’s not act like you don’t have a hateboner here — and judging from everything you’ve ever written, it’s a pretty hateful boner.
Re: Re:
Only if it’s done willfully and for profit.
Re: Re: Re:
Actually not.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well do show the citation if you’re not allergic to evidence.
Re: Re: Re:
“Nuh-uh” is a rebuttal fit for a preschooler on a playground.
Re: Re:
First, from an economic standpoint copyright infringement has in some instances a similar effect as if there where an competitor, this means that to keep competing the content creators needs to adapt the sale price of the media plus they need to innovate and come up with new stuff – which may broaden their audience. But that doesn’t mean that every infringement that occurs is a lost sale.
We know from experience that with no competition you get captive markets and monopolies, which means you have a stagnated market segment and high prices with little or no development. This directly contravenes one of the stated purposes of copyrights.
On a related note – some argue, that in essence this means that if you wield copyright in such a draconian fashion that you hamper the creation and stimulation of new works and arts you are actually breaking the US constitutions copyright clause (you know, the whole "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts").
Second, to my knowledge, copyright infringement in general is not a federal crime – it usually becomes a crime in egregious cases. Otherwise it’s usually a civil matter.
Third, nobody has ever said that they infringe someones copyright because they thought it would be good for the creator. Most people do it because it’s convenient in one way or another, I’m not justifying it – I’m just telling how it is.
In the end, several different research papers (with verifiable methodology) has come to the conclusion that there are positive net effects from the act of copyright infringement which means that some of the things enshrined in copyright law and it’s use doesn’t benefit our society to its fullest.
Re: Re: Re:
Nothing is stopping anyone from creating works or selling them or the rights to them as they see fit.
We still have BEST NEW ARTIST awards btw. Amazing.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Actually, that has happened. How many articles have we not seen of people and companies getting sued for copyright infringement because their work was a tribute or related to some other work or perhaps was just a tad too similar to something else.
Or does that not count because the majority of artists still can publish and sell their works, regardless of the chilling effects which comes from some entities bluntly wielding copyright enforcement?
Re: Re:
Setting aside the fact that only for-profit infringement can possibly be considered criminal, illegal competition is still competition.
Wouldn’t it be better to reduce the penalties for illegal downloading by treating it more like an ASCAP violation than infringement? Infringement should relate to the creation of other works, not the downloading of my work.
I would be fine if the penalty for an illegal download were triple the price of the item, plus attorney fees. That is enough to compensate a creator without imposing a draconian penalty on a downloader who is more like a shoplifter than a plagiarist.
The game of thrones example would fall under “transactional consent” to the piracy that should not be used to justify other piracy. The parasites (pirates) are small enough in number not to overwhelm the host, but this is not the case for all works.
There was a niche video company (basically quasi-porn, PG-13 stuff) that was making six figures a year by producing content for its niche audience. HUGE success story, until the adult “tube” sites sprang up and mercilessly pirated its business into oblivion. Many hardcore XXX types have complained on social media about their revenue being destroyed, some to the point of having to turn tricks.
Whether or not you like porn, this is a case where piracy did not increase the value of the original works, which are often priced ridiculously high, effectively punishing the honest consumers who buy it.
Of course, knowing this, the porn producers could easily create works with the intent of profiting off of infringement lawsuits, which is why I think a penalty of triple the price of the item would be a great middle ground.
Re: Re:
Porn is a bad example to use. Even if the price of porn was low enough to compete with piracy (did you even read the article?) there is a stigma in the purchase of pornographic materials. Unless you live alone and have adequate income or you and your significant other(s) share your interest you’re not likely to purchase porn or related paraphernalia due to the chance of being “caught”.
Porn has its own challenges in the marketplace but piracy is not significant among them.
Re: Re: Re:
That porn has a stigma doesn’t strip it of its copyright or justify piracy.
Many who pirate porn are sex addicts who most certainly would purchase it. Many women who make porn use it to advertise prostitution, thanks to piracy destroying their income.
Re: Re: Re:
[citation needed]
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Really?
Sex addicts pirating porn needs citations?
I suppose there are some out there but I had kind of thought this was self-evident.
Re: Re: Re:3
A sex addict can be someone who “pirates” porn, but someone who “pirates” porn is not necessarily a sex addict.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
"Correlation not being causation" just doesn’t fly when the person you are debating has no grasp of what the terms mean.
I doubt I’m the only one thinking that most pro-copyright posters are relying on faith-based semi-religious argumentation and circular logic.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
It might not have occurred to you, given your situation, but not all sex addicts have to rely on pornography.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
So women are prostitutes because of piracy? Wait till the worlds oldest profession hears about this.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Porn actresses are definitely turning to prostitution because of mass piracy of porn. Ask any porn actress and many will tell you point-blank, if they don’t complain about it on social media. It’s not really a secret.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
That’s the first appeal to authority that I’ve ever seen that involved porn stars, but hey if that’s how you get your jollies…
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
John Smith was very hurt when Paul Hansmeier admitted his guilt.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Argument ad hominem.
Civilized, proper debate is not a faucet one may turn on and off at will.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
You do not seem to understand the significance of a bullying target being exceptionally polite.
Not my concern.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Replying to yourself may be a sign of mental instability.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Neither do you seem to understand the validity of a threat after its supposed consequences fail to occur.
You’re firing blanks.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
“You’re firing blanks.”
In more ways than one.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Begging is the oldest profession (someone had to ask for it first).
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Many who pirate porn are sex addicts who most certainly would purchase it. Many women who make porn use it to advertise prostitution, thanks to piracy destroying their income."
You need an addiction in order to be interested in sex? I beg to differ, referencing Most Of Human Biology.
And the issue with people paying for said porn might be because today we have this internet thing which means there are enough exhibitionists with web cameras around to seriously dent the "need" to specifically pay – even for the addicts. And yet apparently the business as a whole does quite well, despite competition with "free".
And then we have you, claiming, apparently seriously, that many women are left with prostitution as sole recourse over people making copies of data files.
As "interesting" as that argument is I think it would better fit a recruitment ad for some religious organization than a lever for further fact-based debate.
“Study shows rape can sometimes enhance the sex lives of its victims!”
This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" for desired assertions.
For start, it’s OLD, dated 8/8/18. Torrent Freak just yesterday turned it up, and Techdirt seized on it immediately because good news for pirates. Will never be a piece here on bad news like the 3 Manga pirates actually jailed in Japan.
"Model" is academic code for FAKE. Not reality and empirical data, just notions and then adjusted until "right".
Very limited, then.
Entirely overlooked here at Pirate Central, let alone with numbers of positive / negative which would prove that nearly all piracy is negative, particularly for the poorer who are disadvantaged already.
The paper is behind an academic wall priced at $10.00! JUST TOO TYPICAL: DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO. What keeps that market "balanced"? — Will someone pirate the paper so I can expose it as fraud? After all, a certain amount of piracy must be good for academia too!
Re:
Given how obsessed you are with “piracy”, I think you know exactly where to find Sci-Hub or Library Genesis, so if you want this done right, go do it yourself.
Re: Re: This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" for desired assertions.
There you’re factually wrong. I don’t do details. YOU are the one who clearly knows: I’d never even heard of the latter site!
I don’t care if it’s done right, I just want it for free! — Sheesh. I embrace piracy and you attack me for that too!
Re: Re: Re:
If you don’t care enough to do it right, you don’t care enough to do it at all, and I’m not gonna do your job for you, Spanky.
Re: Re: Re:2 This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" for desired assertions.
Oooh, burn! Twice now!
You’re not even doing your own job of effective ankle-biting.
Re: Re: Re: This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" for desired assertio
We know. Your forte lies in vague, baseless assertions and ad hominem attacks.
Re: Re: Re:2 This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" for de
You clearly have no forte, by not seeing that you make a vague baseless assertion and ad hominem attack right there, besides ineffective.
Re: This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" for desired assertio
I disagree. The study is quite legitimate. It just presumes that involuntarily hijacking protected work is somehow justified. It’s not.
Many internet marketers write e-books that are intentionally “pirated” because the books, like “Secrets of making a fortune in real estate,” are just collections of publicly available internet wisdom compiled for the purpose of marketing to a mailing list of free downloaders, those who pay a few bucks to an affiliate marketer, or put on piracy sites knowing that the “pirates” will then be lured into buying expensive premium products which are often a much larger scam.
Famous authors often give away a new book for a day or a week to get a buzz going, and then rely on their branding to an audience that thinks they “deserve” to be paid, while some anonymous internet author doesn’t have that protection.
If one views the study in the context of analyzing the impact of giving away free samples, it’s legitimate. If one takes the extra step of saying that we can tolerate the internet status quo of piracy as collateral damage, that is where I digress.
Re: Re: This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" for de
Well, we disagree that a "model" is a study or can be legitimate. Math with values initialized to result in desired numbers is neither honest nor reality.
However, let me nail you down: Have you actually paid for and READ the study? (Note that you might expose your own piracy if available elsewhere as known pirate Stone claims…)
Re: Re: Re: This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" fo
I’m well aware of this and similar studies. The one cited was not the first.
I’m also aware of authors who do in fact give away their works for the first day or week to build an audience, and have done so very successfully. Musicians do it too. Where I disagree with Masnick is that I think this decision should be made by the artists rather than forced upon them by an internet that is designed in a way that doesn’t offer them protection.
Masnick wants the internet status quo to remain, while others do not. This does not make him pro-piracy or anti-copyright, but pro-internet-status-quo, if one wants to view his work through a Boolean lens.
Re: Re: Re:2 This crap isn't a study, it's a "model&
Well, you seem resolved to believe that Masnick is other than as I’ve concluded, Boolean-ly. And I assert to have more experience than you: I’ve been defending copyright here since actually read Masnick’s notions: the only person known converted, definitely only from pirate-ish to defender. I’ve had literally thousands of pro-copyright comments censored, which they euphemize "hiding", and since that’s by and with Masnick’s approval, I conclude that his true views are pro-piracy. Your opinion and accuracy may vary. — My opinion won’t soften after the brutal unrelenting ad hom that Masnick has allowed of me.
But Masnick is not even the author of this piece.
I look at Techdirt as including its fanboys, and many of the later are most certainly pirates, besides unable to discuss rationally without demonizing opponents.
Re: Re: Re:3 This crap isn't a study, it's a "mo
I take greater issue of Masnick’s tolerance for cyberbullying in the name of “free speech.”
I think he should get full credit as if he had made the statements himself when he allows pure bigotry or worse to stand. To let the users do it is pure cowardice and I’m surprised his sponsors tolerate it.
Re: Re: Re:4 This crap isn't a study, it's a &quo
Yes yes we know you hate actually having to blame the parties responcible almost as much as you hate actually providing evidence for all the bullshit you spew.
Re: Re: Re:5 This crap isn't a study, it's a &
Slanted language proves nothing.
Masnick clearly does not censor hate-speech rooted in perception of mental illness (not that anyone really believes that, because they’d never dare provoke someone who was truly crazy).
This type of bigotry is still acceptable, for now. Odds are the SJW will get around to retconning it to the point where those who are on the wrong side of history wind up paying the price down the road. Look at #metoo: the behavior that is now costing men their careers was considered normal at the time.
History won’t smile on Masnick, but he lives for the here and now. He’s not worried about the future.
Re: Re: Re:6 “Slanted language proves nothing”
It proves you have a thinner skin than a mummified mosquitos foreskin.
Re: Re: Re:7 “Slanted language proves nothing”
Well let’s see how thick Masnick’s skin is once it is truly tested.
He started this.
Re: Re: Re:8 “Slanted language proves nothing”
What are you gonna do about it? If your past behaviour is any clue, you will, bitch, moan, threaten impotently, and lie like a proactive prostitute on a rug.
Re: Re: Re:6
And that’s how we know nothing you say has any merit whatsoever. You should’ve used NPC; at least that vague term is still somewhat fresh.
Re: Re: Re:2 This crap isn't a study, it's a "model"
"Where I disagree with Masnick is that I think this decision should be made by the artists rather than forced upon them by an internet that is designed in a way that doesn’t offer them protection."
Well that’s a problem, then, because you don’t get an internet which offers any of that protection until you prevent people from owning computers and learning how to program them, along with an intelligence apparatus monitoring all connections which puts even Chinas to shame.
Safe to say that even attempting to "regulate" the internet that way means we can say fare-thee-well to any form of online transaction and rolling back to pre-1960’s economy models.
Now, "pirate" procedures will keep working flawlessly long after every legitimate use of the online environment has ceased, so I AM sort of keen to see an actual concerted attempt made by some government hell-bent on turning their national economy into a collective Darwin Award.
you pro-copyright cultists really should spend at least a little time learning enough about basic networking and cryptography to realize what is possible and what is not. Preferably before you ask everyone else to "nerd harder and invent magic" on your behalf.
Re: Re: This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" for de
Unlike most, I don’t just stop and object at first point, forgot to answer the above.
1) If regarded as free samples, then this IS old news.
2) This isn’t "samples", it’s the WHOLE of a briefly wanted product. There’s value to advertising it, sure, but "Hey, you should pirate THIS!" pretty clearly doesn’t lead to more sales. The notion doesn’t account for honest people who’ll still buy. Piracy left unchecked will ruin the whole system is my position, so I don’t think you should at all legitimize such "studies".
3) Because that’s not how the authors title it: I think it’s obvious that they want to support piracy.
Re: Re: Re: This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" fo
Nobody is saying piracy should be left unchecked (at least nobody capable of critical thought). But there is an asymptotic curve in the effectiveness of additional attempts at enforcement such that we’re already way past where double efforts reaps any measurable rewards.
We could have stopped at the systems in place decades ago and had a reasonable balance between enforcement and piracy. Instead we’ve ended up with an extralegal system that punishes non-infringers, non-pirates more than it does the infringers and pirates. And we’re apparently not yet done ramping up the crazy.
Re: Re: Re:2 This crap isn't a study, it's a "model&
ON THE INTERNET? Where perfect copying requires literally one-click? Where millions of copies can be viewed without returning even a CENT to the makers?
YOU are not "capable of critical thought".
Re: Re: Re:3
And you’re not capable of bringing forth a coherent argument without tossing out insults and condescension, but when has that ever stopped you.
Re: Re: Re:2 This crap isn't a study, it's a "model"
That is due to a flaw in how the internet has been built. You just want us to ignore these flaws in a way that tolerates piracy, while the pro-copyright crowd considers the non-infringers legitimate collateral damage which should be eliminated by “new business models” among the platforms.
Please note I am not saying one side or the other is right here, only clarifying their positions as they appear to me. Perhaps Masnick is right, perhaps the other side is right. There are many fine people on both sides of this debate.
Re: Re: Re:2 This crap isn't a study, it's a "model"
"Nobody is saying piracy should be left unchecked (at least nobody capable of critical thought)."
Actually, i beg to differ. You are way too optimistic about where the point of diminishing returns lies on copyright enforcement.
We’re at the point where, similar to previous history on conflicts between modern technology and protectionist law we might just be better off abolishing most of copyright altogether, keeping attribution only and the strict commercial aspect, making some variant of CC the default on copyright.
"We could have stopped at the systems in place decades ago and had a reasonable balance between enforcement and piracy."
If by "enforcement" you mean, "as useless as today" then you’d be right. Both end points of that scale are, however, useless for the intended purpose at hand.
"And we’re apparently not yet done ramping up the crazy."
No we aren’t. And we won’t be until at some point in the future the harmful fallout of copyright enforcement has proceeded to the point where as a result copyright is abolished as a whole. We aren’t exactly short of historical examples of protectionism in the face of progress nor how those examples panned out in the end.
The problem remains that as long as we accept copyright as anything other than a form of utopian yet impractical ideal similar to communism or total anarchy we will keep ending up having to tolerate an ever-increasing amount of "crazy" ramping up in order to defend it while copyright enforcers screech like old-style soviet commissars trying to drown out common sense with easily disproven or irrelevant slogans such as "you wouldn’t download a car" and "don’t copy that floppy".
Re: Re: Re: A match made in the psych ward
Kiss him you fool!
Re: Re: Re:2 A match made in the psych ward
People who speak like this are pure evil and their DNA needs to be weeded out of the gene pool.
What do they think they’re accomplishing when they talk like this? It’s very close to fighting words. They don’t have the guts to sign their name to it, but Masnick lets the comments stand, which in my opinion puts him on par with the speaker, and his sponsors on par with him.
Re: Re: Re:3
Oh goody, you’re an idiot and a eugenicist.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Politics is eugenics by legislation, by rewarding and punishing various behavior. One need not sterilize people but simply pass laws which advantage the survival of more sustainable conduct.
“Stephen T. Stone” is quite the internet ghost for someone with a full name. All the search results seem to point to here, though I think there was a few that led elsewhere. Am I missing something?
Re: Re: Re:5
I shudder to think of what you believe to be “sustainable conduct”. Will you be sterilizing asexuals, or will you be forcing them to ejaculate into a cup “for the good of humanity”?
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
What’s wrong bro? Or did you think you’re were the first person who thought to use a pseudonym on the internet?
Re: Re: Re:3 A match made in the psych ward
Rut roh looks like a precious snowflake got triggered. Best run off to your safe space.
Re: Re: Re:4 A match made in the psych ward
You misspelled “provoked.”
I have been extremely civilized and logical in my rebuttal. Can’t say the same for others.
Masnick made this bed.
Re: Re: Re:5 A match made in the psych ward
Hey broseph we wouldn’t treat you like a lying piece of shit if you stopped acting like one. It’s not that hard to fathem.
Re: Re: Re:5 A match made in the psych ward
I see your bluff and raise you by IP address evidence.
Still going on strong after a dozen years now, are we?
Re: Re: Re:6 A match made in the psych ward
You think Jhon boy is an old hand?
Re: Re: Re:7 A match made in the psych wa
John Smith = The Anti-Mike/horse with no name/MyNameHere/Just Sayin’/Whatever.
It’s not hard to spot the similarities. It helps that he didn’t do much of a job covering his tracks.
Re: Re: Re:8 A match made in the psyc
"It helps that he didn’t do much of a job covering his tracks."
He never did. I suspect it’s the same one man army who used to haunt Torrentfreak until disqus turned out to be too difficult to make viable sock puppets in. He certainly loves the same rhetoric – that one which starts out with strong assertions based on false assumptions and circular logic only to then rapidly degrade into a persistent droning whine about how the police will be coming for every last one of us because we’re being mean enough to call his bullshit for what it is.
Re: Re: Re:9 A match made in the
Oh, he is. He started posting claims about how people were mimicking him and somehow making him look even more stupid.
Look at 2017’s New Year Message. bobmail triggers him like a tumblr user.
Re: Re: Re:10 A match made in
I almost miss bobmail’s old gleeful crowing about how, any day now, pirates would be marched through the streets in irons or consigned to maximum-security prisons, while somehow failing to realize the torments he envisioned for any kid making a copy would be considered unconstitutional and inhumane were it applied to cannibal murderers in most jurisdictions.
And when we then informed him not even Taliban zealots had that inhumane penalties for violating their commandments he always had a sad and started sniffling about how we’d all go to hell for being cyber bullies.
Good times. As I recall that guy alone managed to make more of a case against copyright to neutral parties just by presenting his views in favor of it than any number of politically active pirates ever could while arguing the opposite rationally.
I started seeing him as the antropomorphic personification of a free attack ad against copyright and copyright enforcement long ago. May he never change.
Re: Re: Re:2 A match made in the psych ward
At the very least, Masnick will one day be confronted by a journalist, on camera, over his allowance of cyberbullying on his site. That is how free speech (counterspeech) works.
Re: Re: Re:3
Dude, nobody here knows who the hell you are, and you can willingly choose to stop coming here any time you want if being challenged on your views and insulted hurts your pride so much that you refer to it as “cyberbullying”.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
If the n-word were used, and no one knew someone was black, there would definitely be consequences. The language itself is the problem, not that no one knows at whom it is directed. It’s also terrible debate form.
You’re naïve regarding the rest of your post. Masnick is letting others’ mouths start fights in a place where his sponsors should have shut that down.
His seeming belief that everyone is a powerless internet troll who can’t call him out via the mainstream media is equally naïve. He’s owning these words by letting them stand. Authors who submit articles to this site are also giving tacit acceptance to what many consider a terrible form of bigotry.
The person who mouths off like this directly is sending serious red flags even if they don’t realize it, but they probably do since they’re anonymous, or at least they think they are.
A matrix of everyone Masnick associates with and their internet histories would make fascinating reading, yet he’s such a gnat that it’s not worth constructing. That he allows language like this is concrete proof he is nothing more than a bush-league journalist (his slanted language also proves this).
I doubt he cares what I or anyone thinks, and I’m sure he makes decent money from this site. The best questions are who is paying him, and how much. Does he really think those questions can’t be answered?
Bullying someone in this manner is the best way to get their full investigative attention. Consider the source and all of that. I don’t need to say more here because the conduct literally speaks for itself, just like the conduct of those who stand down in its face.
Once a person utters words like this they have proven themselves completely worthless professionally and socially. The saddest thing is to picture who they kiss up to and how they act, expecting their conduct to be ignored.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
So are we doing the Clark Kent revenge fantasy or the dirty cop “undercover” investigation revenge fantasy today?
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Not at all. Masnick’s conduct speaks for itself. The means by which those can protest that conduct also speak for themselves.
I’m saying that this conduct makes him look horrible and is a sign of an amateur. He obviously is not concerned with this.
Just as he has a right to let these words stand, others have the right to call him out for it. That’s what “vigorous debate” under the First Amendment is about. I take the “right to swing my arm stops at your nose” position, if you want to be formal in debating this.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
Ohhh the wrestling fantasy. That ones a classic.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
And we have every right to call you an idiot for your continued baseless threats of criminal proceedings over a “gnat” of a journalist who is somehow powerful enough to make you feel “bullied” by people on a website you voluntarily visit to seek out “debate” in the form of condescension, a lack of citations to back up statements of fact, ridiculous assertions that have no basis in logic, and the the aforementioned baseless threats. Don’t like it? Door’s to your left.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
And if that language bothers you so much, door’s to your left. Nobody is forcing you to come to this site, click on an article, scroll down to the comments section, and leave a comment — nobody, that is, except you.
I’m not seeing news about him on MSNBC or in the New York Times, so…put up or shut up, son.
Two things.
…says the guy who continually threatens Mike with police investigations and “exposure” but never backs those vague threats up with tangible action/results.
Is he a gnat who isn’t worth going after, or is he some über-powerful journalist who needs to be taken down with police investigations and court hearings? You can’t have it both ways, dumbass.
I’m sure they can. But I don’t see you answering them.
“Hello, District Attorney’s office? Yes, I’d like to report a crime that needs investigating. Someone said mean things to me in the comments on a blog and I need y—hello? Hello?”
You certainly have.
I would prefer not to imagine you kissing someone’s ass.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Uh… what sponsors? What money? You’re the one who regularly claims this site can’t influence anyone or change the law. Are you saying that people actually read the site now?
See, if you’re going to point something out and establish a stance it helps to be consistent. Fanciful imagination might work back in the performance rights organization you spawned from, but not out here in the real world.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
I see sponsors on the site, and Google often lists this site first in news on searches for copyright or Section 230.
I do believe that the toleration of bigotry and slanted language do greatly reduce the influence of this site.
If people are going to use such insults against me, I’m going to find out who they are and why they are doing it. Anyone who thinks a posting handle is sufficient to remain anonymous is the delusional one.
What is done in the dark WILL be brought to the light. This isn’t a TV show where someone can just randomly insult people and then everyone’s acting nice five seconds later. Bullying (or its enabling) has consequences.
Mike Masnick is a public figure, and as such has surrendered any expectation of privacy. He is free to stop tolerating that type of language any time he wishes. Why YOU care so much is something I do not know.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
"If people are going to use such insults against me, I’m going to find out who they are and why they are doing it. Anyone who thinks a posting handle is sufficient to remain anonymous is the delusional one."
Wow, haven’t seen a gool ol’ fashioned Internet Tough Guy around here for a while. Well done for bringing back the "fear"!
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:Tell why you’re crying
Is it because no one respects you here, just like in real life?
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
I see sponsors on the site, and Google often lists this site first in news on searches for copyright or Section 230.
Okay? I imagine so would Yahoo, Bing, or any search engine worth its salt. You’re saying they sponsor Masnick, too?
I do believe that the toleration of bigotry and slanted language do greatly reduce the influence of this site.
So… we’re back to the "this site has no influence" argument again. Okay, so if the website obviously isn’t significant then why do you care so much?
Anyone who thinks a posting handle is sufficient to remain anonymous is the delusional one.
Chalk that up to another of the few instances we agree.
Mike Masnick is a public figure, and as such has surrendered any expectation of privacy. He is free to stop tolerating that type of language any time he wishes. Why YOU care so much is something I do not know.
Looks like you missed a logical step there. What does Masnick’s privacy have to do with you feeling offended? Hell, Masnick’s let plenty of people toss death threats at him on this site, so he’s okay with it. Why’s he got to bend over backwards because of some nobody?
So apparently jokes about you and out_of_the_blue are punishable by death but you threatening police action on everyone who disagrees with you is kosher. This is why nobody takes you seriously.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
"If the n-word were used, and no one knew someone was black, there would definitely be consequences."
Calling a demonstrable liar a liar equates to racism and ethnic slurs in your little world? I believe I’m on very safe grounds to claim any DA bothering to read this thread would tell you – politely, the first time, to f*ck off and stop wasting their time.
"His seeming belief that everyone is a powerless internet troll who can’t call him out via the mainstream media is equally naïve. He’s owning these words by letting them stand. Authors who submit articles to this site are also giving tacit acceptance to what many consider a terrible form of bigotry."
Bravo. Off you go to the police then, to back your assertion with action.
Didn’t think so. I guess that DOES leave you a powerless internet troll with little other recourse than, for example, claiming that having an opinion about making copies equates to actual bigotry.
I’m very sorry to have to break this to you, but if you are being an idiot and people call you out for it that does not magically make you a protected minority with a history of abuse. It just makes you a specific kind of asshole for trying to ride the coattails of people who have and are suffering second-class citizen treatment over their skin color, sexual identity, or ancestry.
And then you had yourself a long diatribe on how Masnick and everyone else here who refuses to cordially accept the fact that your entire presence here persists as an exercise in lies, deception, and occasional slander.
Classic.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Then no one knows if I’m a dude or a chick.
Re: Re: Re: This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" fo
Yes, there is advertising value in pirated copies, which is why many “books” are actually advertisements disguised as literary works, which tricks the audience into thinking it has bought useful information rather than bait for a seminar scam. See the “make money online” crowd that perfected this technique.
What they do is take the work of people who spent years creating it, rehash it, distribute it cheap by e-book, intentionally set it up to be “pirated,” and use it to market live seminars which are usually huge scams. Some people have lost their life savings this way.
Do people not know who the major internet-marketing celebrities are? Some of them have completely destroyed what should have been profitable niches. Many who market through intentionally “pirated” advertising copy also mass-pirate their competitors’ works (people who rely on e-book income rather than seminar scams), effectively starving their competition.
It’s much easier to make a million dollars from 2,000 people paying $5,000 each for a scam seminar promoted by a “pirated” e-book, with the con-artist millionaire simultaneously destroying the value of competing e-books and starving their authors, leaving the market run by nothing but scammers.
Re: This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" for desired assertions.
[Citation needed] (Just to clarify – you need to provide links to factual information that "Model" is academic code for FAKE)
Please provide information on what persons you are referring to – are we talking about orphans in Calcutta or what?
That’s just plain disingenuous. Please provide citation where they said that people SHOULD indulge in copyright infringement.
How are you supposed to accomplish that? You can’t even come up with factual information supporting your arguments in general. Also, it seems you prefer to encourage copyright infringement rather than paying $10 to prove you are right…
Re: Re: This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" for de
Here’s link to proof of all I state:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190128/12103041476/study-shows-piracy-can-sometimes-be-beneficial-to-markets-consumers-alike.shtml
To be sure, it’s a neatly circular proof in the Techdirt tradition of linking to its prior pieces. It’s justified by that your own demands for proof should require prior citations to be valid.
I’m afraid you’ll have to go with what I state there, "Rocky".
In other words, your quote-and-contradict method isn’t adequate, you need to STATE some facts else have nothing.
Re: Re: Re: This crap isn't a study, it's a "model" for de
You claimed something which you couldn’t back up at which point you declare that I need to state the facts you couldn’t.
O_o
Re: Re: Re:2 This crap isn't a study, it's a "model"
"You claimed something which you couldn’t back up at which point you declare that I need to state the facts you couldn’t. "
You’re debating with a religious fanatic of the "holier-than-thou" bent. And somehow I see you are surprised by his response to having his hypocritical bullshit called?
You can’t expect solid argumentation, or even half-assed rhetoric from someone who starts out using Russel’s Teapot as established fact and casus belli.
Re: Re: Re:3 This crap isn't a study, it's a "model"
I would like to say that I’m properly chastised…but his arguments is like a scab that keep itching and if I just scratch it a bit more it will stop…
Re: Re: Re:4 This crap isn't a study, it's a "mo
"I would like to say that I’m properly chastised…but his arguments is like a scab that keep itching and if I just scratch it a bit more it will stop…"
I’m afraid that’s what arguing with a delusional fanatic will ALWAYS feel like. You read what they write, find where they’re claiming that up is down, left is right, war is peace, freedom is slavery, and cooking home meals instead of paying a restaurant is grand larceny which if widely accepted will turn every trained Chef into a homeless hobo starving to death in the streets.
And then you feel that itch…that urge, to point out that none of that is true or could even happen this side of a bad acid trip.
And then you find, much like Galileo in his time, that the person you are arguing with will go to any length to justify their opinion, no matter what factual reality or even their own eyes, tells them.
I feel for you, but when you encounter someone with those arguments the best you can do is to accept that the counterargument you offer is only good for the rest of the readership because the person you’re contradicting is a lost cause.
The effect of piracy is always negative? Tell that to to companies whose dominance can be attributed to piracy.
Microsoft and Adobe. Windows and Office outside the US relied on piracy to hook people and create lock-in effects. Photoshop grew to dominate the market almost entirely due to piracy.
Re: Re:
That’s more of transactional consent to a free sample, done at the initiative of the companies, not the pirates.
False equivalence.
Re: Re: Re:
Sample: a small part or quantity intended to show what the whole is like.
Did they download the whole OS or just the blue screen of death?
The effect of piracy is always negative.
Definitional.
Your "attributed" is new to me. But that dominance was due almost solely to IBM picking Microsoft, which was due to IBM fearing anti-trust action and not making their own OS for their new in 1981 "Personal Computer". Bill Gates would be a footnote now except for lucking in at right time with the already obtained dominance of IBM to catapult him.
So at best it’s not quite so straightforward as you assert!
Re: The effect of piracy is always negative.
Then there’s that.
Cui bono?
NOT A FACT..
“just because you think “competing with free” isn’t fair, “
that is wrong.
Piracy is someone Generally Earning money to Compete with the big guys, for a few reasons..
SHARING is the other side, which generally means giving it away FOR FREE..
What would be a detriment to giving it away free???
Those Pirates cant make money.. If someone gives it away.
ANd neither can the corps.
The Fun truth of Original over a COPY…is the casing, and the Longer lasting QUALITY of the original(?)
Will that CD/DVD/TAPE/RECORD the corp sold LAST???
Anyone that ever owned a Record knows that answer, as the tape Player can distort and stretch the TAPE… CD/DVD can be kept clean, OUT of the sun light, and last along time…but PLASTIC does not last..
Re: NOT A FACT..
If copyright law required a showing of pecuniary harm you would have a very convincing argument. Why, however, does copyright law NOT require this showing?
Re: Re: NOT A FACT..
A demonstration of judicial magnanimity which you proceeded to squander for decades.
An increasing number of judges have caught on that this supposed claim of “statutory damages” is little more than to use the courts as another money-making machine. Just like your heroes in Prenda Law.
Re: Re: Re: NOT A FACT..
In those cases, “statutory damages” can be reduced to $750, or even to $200.
Your issue would then be with the judiciary, not with copyright protection per se.
Re: Re: Re:2 NOT A FACT..
Then reduce those damages to $750 if having them taken seriously is that important to you.
Boom, problem solved.
Copyright holders are the real pirates–real, actual pirates.
Everyone who creates anything did not do so alone. They were educated, influenced, inspired, assisted, supported, and helped (along with an endless list of other “helping terms”) by others–others who can loosely be described as “society” (aka everyone who isn’t the copyright holder). Everything owned by the copyright holder is just as much if not more so owned by society. Returning works to the public domain upon the creator’s half-life (used to be 20 years more or less) was a natural and logical action required to balance the scales.
Until we get back to that as the status quo, the pirates will keep on stealing (and when I say “pirates”, I mean the copyright holders).
Re: Re:
The creator alone spent time on the creation.
The way the internet works, 95 years is kind of ridiculous because that creates the “legacy” about which people complain. I’d be fine with a twenty-year limitation but then that would create a lot of competition for marketing older works like ’80s music etc.
For much of my writing, twenty MONTHS would be fine, though some of my work that is much older still makes money.
Re: Re: Re:
Shakespeare’s works have been in the public domain for our entire lives and nobody has ever had a problem “competing” with his works. What makes you think the “competition” would be any worse if everything that was made in or before the year of your birth was suddenly public domain?
There is a really hilarious truth to this ridiculous idea. Do you remember the Russian guy who downloaded a bunch of code from a big bank, and then sold it to their competitor? He got off using the same logic: What did I actually steal? The USB drive was mine, I didn’t steal that. Nothing is gone, I just have a copy of some of your bits (actually source code, trade secrets and information that took tens of millions of dollars and years to develop).
He went to jail for a while, but then got out, using the same argument: what did I steal? Nothing is actually gone.
He got off. He stole a bunch of technology, sold it for millions of dollars, and then got out of jail “free” based on the same logic.
Wow. What’s the incentive again to work so hard to build products that other people can steal for nothing? Why write code, spend years improving and testing it and making it the best, when anyone with access can take it for free? Why record the song, why make the movie, why write the software?
Re: Re:
Because we can. Because we want to.
Re: Re: Re:
“we” – that’s funny.
Stephen T. Stone is not even a real person, let alone a real programmer or artist.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Coming from an AC that is rich with irony.
Re: Re: Re:
If I’m not a real person, why are you still replying to me as if I am? ????
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
It’s kinda funny that in their attempt to insult you, they instead leave themselves looking deranged for arguing with someone that, assuming they were correct, isn’t even a real person.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
"It’s kinda funny that in their attempt to insult you, they instead leave themselves looking deranged for arguing with someone that, assuming they were correct, isn’t even a real person."
…the people who invented copyright math and fail to master object permanence aren’t going to care.
Re: Re:
Do you remember the Russian guy who downloaded a bunch of code from a big bank, and then sold it to their competitor?
No, mostly because if the case was this significant you would actually cite names and dates, such as the name of the bank and perpetrator. This is "urban legend" level stuff like the Brazilian kid who died after ingesting Mentos and Coke at the same time.
The rest of the argument is lost because trade secrets and copyright infringement of entertainment is an apples to chainsaws comparison.
Re: Re: Re:
https://www.ft.com/content/d6e95d58-23f7-11e5-9c4e-a775d2b173ca
The original affidavit from the Federal Bureau of Investigation alleged that Mr Aleynikov downloaded about 32 megabytes of proprietary data from his desktop computer at work as well as his laptop at home on four separate occasions between June 1 and June 5, 2009, his last day at Goldman.
Joan Vollero, communications director at Mr Vance’s office, said it was considering an appeal. “We think this defendant committed a crime. So did the jury. If what Sergey Aleynikov did isn’t a crime, then every company that values its intellectual property should be concerned,” she said.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Again, trade secrets and copyright infringement aren’t the same. You’d be hard pressed to argue that a song getting downloaded has the same amount of damage as industrial espionage. If your lawyer loses an argument like that, sorry, your lawyer is shit.
Re: Re:
Because other people can contribute to that efforts, and you end up owning large scale computing.
Because you have a story to tell, and telling it is more important than money.
Besides which, at least prior to the Internet, most created works mouldered away in drawers and trunks because they could not find a publisher. The idea that money drives creativity only makes sense if you ignore all the effort that never find a large audience.
Sites like YouTube, Jamendo, Wikipedia et. al. thrive because doing is more important than making money.
Re: Re: Re:
I would dare to presume that in your concept of the ideal society, there would be no money. No need for it because everyone is happily doing whatever they want and it all works out for the public good because people are so generous and fairminded in their nature. No police either, because everyone is so happy. You’re one of “those”, right?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not everybody is so obsessed with becoming rich as you are. When you have enough income to live comfortably, you can spend some time in doing things just for the pleasure of accomplishment, often called having a hobby.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
I take it you agree.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Wrong, but many people can distinguish between what they do to earn a living, and what they do as a hobby.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Is it your opinion that if society was correctly organized, everyone could live comfortably and just spend time doing things for pleasure and not worry about money? Do you imagine a society organized around some principle other than money? Can you describe it? Will everybody just “get along” and share things equally and do and say the right things all the time?
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
With you in it? Unlikely, but thanks for playing…
Re: Re:
Ask Linus Torvalds for example, or any other open source developer for that matter. They may be able to enlighten you…
Re: Re: Re:
Yes, maybe I will be “woke” into a new understanding of the meaning of life, money and society. The current system allows for any many as want to be “woke” to be “woke” anytime they want.
There is still no reason to steal from the rest of us.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
You do understand that if you give someone access they actually can access it.
Open source gives access to everyone, the bank gave access to an employee who later broke the trust and absconded with the material he had been given access to.
Complaining that anyone having access can access is…just plain stupid…
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Though I’ve no doubt that I’d get more traction talking to a brick wall, I figure I’ll waste a few seconds pointing out the blindingly obvious, for my own entertainment if nothing else:
So long as you continue to use loaded and dishonest language(‘steal’ rather than ‘infringe’), and attack strawmen(that people here are saying that copyright infringement is okay, rather than just something that will happen, that to even begin to curtail it would cause more damage than it prevents, and that it can at times have positive side-effects), get used to being dismissed out of hand if not laughed at as too dishonest to have a discussion with.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Well, not to come to out_of_the_blue’s (or bobmails?) defense, but by now I, for one, actually all for abolishing some 95% of copyright simply because in the end a total lack of it is infinitely preferable to the rampant abuse even a smidgen of it seems to invite.
We’ve realized, multiple times in history, that immaterial rights are inherently toxic, and by now we should know better than to allow yet another attempt to turn faith into money.
Re: Re:
he typed into his web browser, which is either open-source, partially open-source, or about to become partially open-source.
Re: Re: Re:
Quick correction: Edge is already partially open-source; its JavaScript engine is MIT-licensed. It’s also about to switch to Blink, at which point it will also be using an open-source rendering engine.
So yeah, every modern web browser is at least partially open-source.
Re: Re:
Why buy insurance? why put money in a bank?…why oh why my precious?
Oh, the irony!
Paywalled papers are obviously evil, so there’s no way I’m reading this rubbish unless somebody posts a pirated copy.
Re: Oh, the strawmanity!
Hey dick, does Pai finish in your mouth or in your beard?
Re: Re:
The government shutdown is over, Dick.
Trump can’t protect daddy Pai from being held accountable. Oh, the horror!
Re: Oh, the irony!
Richard Bennett, a closet pirate? Who would’ve… no, actually, it was fucking obvious all along.
Re: Oh, the fail!
Well, you really are getting senile aren’t you? You can’t even get a proper burn in anymore. Shall we review?
First, you attempt to paint Karl as a pirate advocating for piracy, despite the fact that he linked to a site that paid for the report and wrote its own article on it, and he also linked to the full paywalled report itself, implying he actually paid for and read it. Not to mention saying "paywalled papers are obviously evil" is misleading since no one is arguing that paywalled papers are "evil" but that they do lock up knowledge. While not evil per se, it certainly is a dick move. (See what I did there?)
Second, you have now publicly and blatantly stated that you are uninterested in actually engaging in any kind of legitimate debate since you refuse to read the source material, while simultaneously dismissing it as "rubbish" and incorrect without actually knowing what it says or what facts and data it presents.
Third, while likely meant as sarcasm, you have stated that you would be willing to read a pirated copy of it. Thereby indicating you yourself engage in piracy since reading a pirated copy someone else pirated is still, technically, piracy.
Try again Richard.