Universal Music's Anti-Piracy Ads Even Crazier Than You Can Imagine

from the think-they're-bad?-they're-worse dept

Thu, Aug 6th 2015 5:14am — Mike Masnick

By now it should be no surprise at all that the legacy entertainment and software industries liked to produce absolutely ridiculous anti-piracy ads, under the mistaken belief that if they just "educate" people a little more, they'll magically stop infringing. It's never worked. It never will work, but they just keep on trying. A few historical examples have been so Reefer Madness ridiculous that they've reached iconic levels. For example, the infamous "don't copy that floppy" campaign: Or the "Home Taping is Killing Music" campaign:

That one has been subject to frequent mockery, including the time that the Dead Kennedy's did the following on one of its cassette tapes:

Or this parody by Bo Patterson on "Home Sewing is Killing Fashion."

And, of course, Dan Bull's parody song "Home Taping Is Killing Music." And, then the ever iconic "You Wouldn't Download A Car" ads (it's actually "you wouldn't steal a car" but everyone remembers it the other way): This one was fabulously parodied by the IT Crowd: Given all of that, you might think that the legacy entertainment industry couldn't possibly get any more crazy with these kinds of ads. You'd be wrong.

Paul Resnikoff, over at Digital Music News, has a series of fairly graphic anti-piracy ads from Universal Music that it used in Brazil in 2007, each one involving a dismembered body part, implying that downloading music leads to cutting off (or out) pieces of a musicians' body.

We've discussed this before many times: piracy is not an education problem. No matter how much "educating" the industry does, it's not going to change the fact that people like to get their content more conveniently. Apparently that message hasn't gotten through, so the industry keeps ramping up the ridiculousness of each campaign.

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Filed Under: anti-piracy, anti-piracy ads, brazil
Companies: universal music

89 Comments

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That One Guy (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 3:57am

D.A.R.E. to download a car
Funny thing about 'educational' campaigns like this: Kids are actually pretty good at spotting lies and ridiculous hyperbole, and they don't respond well to either.

Telling kids that trying drugs(or downloading music) just once is enough to ruin your life(or the career of a musician) works great as a scare tactic... right up until they see someone who has tried drugs and seems to be just fine, or see a musician who is absolutely swimming in money, despite the constant claims about how piracy is 'destroying music'.

At that point, most of them are going to realize that they've been lied to, and it won't matter if some of what you told them was in fact true, your credibility is now destroyed, and at best they'll probably ignore anything you have to say from that point onward, whether drug or piracy related.

Remember, just because it works on politicians doesn't mean it will work on children, as the latter group is much smarter and and much more able to spot when they're being lied to.
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Michael, 6 Aug 2015 @ 5:25am

Artists that cut off their ear never amount to anything.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 5:37am

If people are as obsessive about some topic, they are referred for counselling. Companies are people therefore....
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PaulT (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 5:40am

If that was really the effect it had on musicians, I'm sure there's a lot of people who would happily set up a cluster of high speed workstations doing nothing but downloading the complete works of Justin Bieber/Nickleback/whoever 24/7. But, last time I checked, those people are still intact (and rich).

What's especially amusing is that this propaganda was being tried in 2007. That was apparently 4 years before iTunes launched in Brazil. 7 years before Spotify was in Brazil. It was also the same year that Pandora was forced to offer its service exclusively to the US market, after being used by people globally before that. And so on...

If only there were ways to allow people to access content legally other than blowing money on comical propaganda that the unobservant might think were promoting the new Saw sequel...
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Mattmon (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 5:40am

You wouldn't download an eyeball.
You wouldn't download a thumb.
You wouldn't download an ear.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 5:48am

Re:
Yes, since there are now dozens of ways to get content legally and conveniently in the US, piracy has disappeared there.

Oh wait, no it hasn't.

Articles like this are why Techdirt is the butt of so many jokes.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 5:54am

Go old school
What got me off violating artist's copyrights was the What's Happening episode guest starring the Doobie Brothers. The gist, Rerun tapes a Doobie Brothers concert for a bootlegger John Dunbar. They broke down how music piracy hurts both the consumer and artists.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 5:55am

Re: Re:
Yes, since there are now dozens of ways to get content legally and conveniently in the US

Having to subscribe to dozens of services, and search each one to find what you are looking for is hardly convenient.
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Agonistes (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 5:55am

Re: Re:
Tell one of them.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 5:56am

You got it wrong
The ads are clearly a threat. If you don't stop destroying the bands you love/Universal's profits, they will cut you apart.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 6:03am

Home cooking is killing the restaurant business.
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PaulT (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 6:03am

Re: Re:
"Yes, since there are now dozens of ways to get content legally and conveniently in the US, piracy has disappeared there."

Piracy existed for decades before the internet, and it will continue long after any measures have been put into place to "stop" it. The trick is to mitigate as much of it as possible by making paying for the content more attractive than piracy - or simply buying legally from a competing entertainment source instead.

Now, for those of us dealing with claims people have actually made, can you point to where anyone writing for this site has said that piracy will magically disappear? Or, is the "dealing with the real world" aspect of the suggestions here too difficult for you to understand, yet again?

Piracy will not disappear completely, no matter what measures are taken. But, none of your idiots have yet explained why pouring money into laughably false propaganda campaigns is a better solution than allowing people to access the content legally.

Perhaps you'll be the first to do this? Nah, from recent articles, it seems you've come up with the latest drivel to copy and paste until you get tired of being laughed out of the room again. What a pity none of "your side" has the basic ability to debate facts and reality, let alone something approaching an honest opinion.
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PaulT (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 6:06am

Re:
Strangely enough, I'll bet that many people would happily do exactly that is they needed one and 3D printing is sufficiently advanced enough to do it. I wouldn't want to do that rather than a decently manufactured sterilised version, but if someone needs to and they can't afford the high cost of the real deal, well...

The only difference there would be that it would be something a person needs, rather than a frivolous entertainment medium with far more competitors than they're used to.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 6:06am

Re: Re:
Did you hear the one where techdirt and riaa walked into a bar?

bartender: "Hey - we don't serve your kind!"
techdirt: "Not at these prices you don't!"
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Haywood (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 6:15am

No prob.
There has been very little music in the last 10 years that has been worth listening to, let alone copying. They are heading toward security through obscurity. Like pro sports every leak they plug makes them that less relevant, and will eventually lead to their demise. When a new form of entertainment comes on the scene, they give it away to try for some market share, as it matures they can monetize it. The trick is to realize that you can take that too far. A few leaks need to be tolerated.
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David, 6 Aug 2015 @ 6:16am

Re:
You are alluding to Vincent van Gogh. He did not amount to anything and likely committed suicide in order to stop living off his brother Theo's money when the latter started a family. Theo von Gogh was not particularly successful selling Vincent's paintings and did not survive him for long.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 6:19am

Re: Re:
Who said it would disappear completely?

Is that even realistic? Or are you just talking trash, as usual? Not very nuanced there, or subtle. But I doubt you mean to be.

[citation needed] for the "so many jokes" reference. Notwithstanding comments on trichordist, which isn't exactly overflowing with visitors.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 6:22am

Re: Re: Re:
heres my cite:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/techdirt.com

vs

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/thetrichordist.com
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PaulT (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 6:27am

Re: Re: Re:
Bartender: Well, you'll pay those prices or leave. Or, I might just decide you can't buy from me at any price and you can leave anyway.

Techdirt: OK, I will. I'll get a 6 pack from the store over the road and drink at home, or maybe just drink from the free water fountain outside before I go to a different kind of business to spend my money. Either way, I'm taking my money elsewhere.

RIAA: OMG, he's stealing from you!

Stretched analogy perhaps, but it really is this silly.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 6:51am

If we're going to mention artists poking fun at the RIAA's stance, I'd say Weird Al's "Don't Download This Song" really deserves a mention.
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techflaws (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 6:52am

Re: Re:
Articles like this are why Techdirt is the butt of so many jokes.

Says you and of course we all believe an anonymous jackass.
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Seegras (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 6:53am

Re: Re:
Yes, since there are now dozens of ways to get content legally and conveniently in the US, piracy has disappeared there.

For music. For some music. Actually, not for most of what I want to listen to. And not in Europe either.

But certainly not for books and movies. Overpriced, country-blocked, crippled with DRM and usually not available.
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Just Another Anonymous Troll, 6 Aug 2015 @ 7:01am

Re: Re:
...and it's still copyrighted, so you're a pirate and the RIAA will kick down your door and rip your 3-D printed eye out of your skull, ironically forcing you to wear an eyepatch.
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That One Guy (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 7:04am

Re: Re: Re:
Speaking of music, it's also worth pointing out that the recording industry has fought tooth and nail against pretty much every way to get content legally that they didn't control, doing everything they could to either kill off or cripple any new way for people to 'get content legally'.

As such, a fixed version of that line would probably go something along the lines of...

'...now a handful of ways to get content legally, despite constant efforts of the recording industry to the contrary...'
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 7:07am

Planned Obsolescence?
I have had some discussions recently with college students about photojournalism. Two of them were studying communications and the third was studying sociology. I mentioned Life Magazine to them as an example of photojournalism. None of these three had ever heard of it. Time Inc. put Life behind a paywall when it died, and this is now their legacy: If you weren't alive then, then one will not even know they existed. What is that going to do for their precious paywall income in the future? The rest of the MAFFIA is driving their constituents to the same fate (which in some cases is a good thing).
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 7:21am

Re: Re:
Yes, exactly. A close friend of mine would happily "download an eyeball" if she could: she's been blind in one eye nearly all her life, due to a botched surgery in childhood that left scarring on her cornea.
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Rich, 6 Aug 2015 @ 7:28am

Re: Re:
It was a joke, lighten up.
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jameshogg (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 7:32am

Bill Hicks:

"Man I always hated those misleading PSAs 'This is your brain' for example. I have seen a lot of things on drugs but I have never ever ever EVER... looked at an egg... and thought it was a fucking brain not once. I have seen UFOs flying through the sky, I have seen why we are all one consciousness and how life's but a dream and seen that kind of enlightenment but I have NEVER looked at an egg and thought it was a fucking brain. Now, maybe I wasn't getting good shit, but..."

You have to be real fucked up to imagine cutting off the ears and fingers and eyes of the artists that work for you and make you rich.
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Roger Strong (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 7:36am

I Prefer the Canadian Version
Home copying is hurting music!

(Except that it isn't, thanks to the tariff you pay to musicians on recordable media, even when you use it for software backups and backing up your photographs and documents.)

And it's illegal!

(Except that in exchange for the tariff, home copying was explicitly made legal. Just don't publish or make money from it.)

It's hurting the music distributors!

(Except that the above deal came from the music distributors. They demanded it and donated a lot of money to MPs responsible for it.)

(Granted, that's minor. On other issues the copyright lobbyists have been in bed with the politicians responsible for copyright, both literally and figuratively.)

But it's still unethical!

(No, no it's not. Not when it was made legal in exchange for us making mandatory payments into the Céline Dion retirement fund whether or not we copy music.)
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 7:48am

Re: Re:
I love how you ignore the fact that video content is often DRM restricted to select devices unless you pirate it and the fact some people still couldnt afford the content they want.

The only joke here is you
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 7:53am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
The methodology used by Alexia is flawed.

These statistics illustrate the techdirt audience is growing more privacy aware and their browsers and plugins block such tracking.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 7:55am

Re: Re: Re:
Ah, but he didn't say "the butt of jokes by so many people" -- just "the butt of so many jokes". Maybe that blog and its four readers just tell a LOT of Techdirt jokes to pass the time between posting lunatic nonsense ramblings and posting intentionally misleading bullshit.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 7:56am

If they lead by example it might be more effective.

As it stands the whole do as I say not as I do ruins any argument they have against it.
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PaulT (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 7:57am

Re: I Prefer the Canadian Version
"making mandatory payments into the Céline Dion retirement fund whether or not we copy music"

Yeah, that's got to sting.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 8:02am

Re: Re:
This coming from a sycophant who whines that poor people don't deserve medicine for health problems.

Keep whining, chicken boy.
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Leigh Beadon (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 8:03am

Re: Re:
Yes, since there are now dozens of ways to get content legally and conveniently in the US, piracy has disappeared there.

Can you imagine if this guy opened a restaurant? When you walked in, the staff would chuck eggs at your head then light you on fire, and he'd wonder why anyone was still eating at home.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 8:15am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So what you're saying is that there are actually more techdirt visitors than illustrated on that site.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 8:23am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
They're being creative. They are the creators of so many jokes. What have you against content creators?

See, Techdirt has inspired the creation of so much content. It should be paid for such inspiration and for supporting content creating think tanks in this manner.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 8:26am

Re: Re:
So since you have nothing substantive to say the most you can do is create an echo chamber of lame jokes. Shows what kind of joke you have become. Wake me up when you have something serious to say because most of what you say comes off like a joke and I can't really tell the difference.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 8:34am

Re: Re:
Your ignorance is amusing. I work in the tech field and I used to see tons of illegal downloading. It used to be about once every other week I would catch someone downloading illegally. As the new services started popping up, that dropped. In the past 3 years, I found only one person downloading illegally. What I see mostly now is Pandora, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube and occasionally Netflix, Hulu traffic.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 8:35am

Re:
Sure you would...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/scientists-create-new-ear_n_2728612.html
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 8:45am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
I just visited thetrichordist.com and found it hilarious.

Check out this silly whiteboard.

http://thetrichordist.com/2015/08/04/professor-whiteboard-explains-whats-wrong-with-berkl eecollege-of-music-report/

https://thetrichordist.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/professor-whiteboard-tr ichordist-vs-berklee-item-1.jpg

It depicts $6 billion going from advertisers to Youtube and only $250 million going from Youtube to the record labels and $4.5 billion going from the record labels to artists.

Here is my response to the author (I'm not going to sign in to post it).

Your post implies that the substantial portion of what Youtube makes is from content that the labels/publishers hold copy protection privileges to. But that's not true. There is much of it that's either from sources that Youtube pays content creators for directly that doesn't go through the labels (ie: a professor posts a video of how to do a math or physics problem and receives advertising dollars not through the labels but from Youtube directly who receives it from advertisers) or it's from people who post their own content willingly and don't receive payment from it (ie: home videos). Just because the majority of the money that goes to Youtube doesn't go through the RIAA/MPAA doesn't mean Youtube anything. Content creators aren't being forced to use Youtube and when they do they do so willingly. Your problem here seems to be that Youtube gives content creators an alternative method to (willingly) distribute their content (and perhaps receive revenue for it) without going through the labels and, somehow, that's not acceptable to you? At least that's what your post seems to be a tacit admission to. So do tell us, who are you really shilling for, the artists or the labels? Because it seems like you want to 'help' artists by taking away their option to willingly get content freely distributed or to take away their option to make money without going through the labels. Please, don't use the artists as the poster child for your allegiance to the labels. It's insulting.

No wonder why his site is such a joke.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 8:48am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
err .. that one sentence should read

Just because the majority of the money that goes to Youtube doesn't go through the RIAA/MPAA doesn't mean anything *
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 8:49am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Don't bother. Comments are heavily moderated. If it's approved, it'll always be approved alongside a dissembling response from the author, so they forever get the last word.

DO enjoy this post though, where they refer to a "July 29 email" quietly hoping nobody will notice it's from July 29, 2005.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 8:54am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Oh, I just looked at the very next post and was amazed at how ridiculous this nonsense is.

"Google’s YouTube is a business built on infringement as a model."

http://thetrichordist.com/2015/08/04/user-pirated-content-is-core-internet-advertising-model- which-is-why-streaming-rates-cant-increase-until-piracy-is-decreased/

Oh wow, this ridiculous completely unsupported nonsense that's so far off as to be hilarious. This site just lost even more credibility. I thought it would at least make some effort at making a defensible position but I guess not.

I think posts like this reveal the true motives of IP extremists. They hate any competing content delivery method not (just) because it enables infringement. They hate them for the same reason they hate Google and Megaupload. They offer content creators an alternative method to get their content distributed and get paid without going through a mandatory ruthless distributor. Infringement is just a pretext.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 9:20am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'm saying the 3rd party site Alexa's tracking cookies can and are being blocked by me and others like me. So yes their numbers are not accurate.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 9:20am

Oh but it is an education problem
It is an education problem, not everyone knows how to do it yet.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 9:41am

Re: Oh but it is an education problem
Surely you mean that the RIAA and MPAA refuse to be educated as to how to make money on the Internet.
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tqk (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 9:44am

Re: Re: Re:
I thought it educational. Everything I'd heard about it before just said Vincent was nuts, with many saying that's why his paintings look the way they do.

You lighten up.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 9:46am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
but I think there is an underlying theme here. The reason why IP extremists don't like anyone being able to get their content distributed without going through them or being able to access content without going through them is because, fundamentally, they hate democracy. They don't want people to be able to democratically choose not to go through them. They are tyrants. This is reflected in how they subvert the democratic process to get what they want (ie: to buy laws) and in their hatred for Youtube/Google, Megaupload, and any technology or methodology that allows people to share and access content without them. They don't want you to have the option to vote with your wallets, they don't want artists to have the option to vote not to go through them, and they are willing to subvert the democratic process to manipulate politics in their favor as well. They are tyrannical democracy haters and should be called out on it.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 10:01am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
It's also reflected in how they moderate or restrict comments on their blogs. It's reflected in how they control the mainstream media in a way to censor anything critical of their pro-IP stance while feeding everyone with their pro-IP propaganda.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 10:16am

Why not?
No matter how much these companies antogonize the public, people keep giving them money. So what incentive do they have not to do crazy stuff like this? The fans will fund it.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 10:30am

Artists becoming famous posthumously is a thing.
Not just painters. Charles Dickens was publicly regarded as a hack when he was alive.

A Christmas Carol was a potboiler. Never mind that it resurrected and redefined western Christmas traditions.
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tqk (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 10:31am

Re:
Home cooking is killing the restaurant business.

Deep pocketed "buggy whip manufacturers" (legacy gateholder industry players) bribing credulous, greedy politicians to pass undemocratic, protectionist laws that serve only the special interests' bottom line at the expense of everyone else is destroying whole countries' democracies.

Don't infringe. Boycott that !@#$! It's not worth the price of everyones' freedoms.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 10:33am

Considering how much the labels and studios steal from the artists...
It's difficult to say that piracy hurts the artists by reducing profits that they don't see.

At least we are listening to their music. The situation could be easily worse.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 10:36am

If I needed an ear, I would.
Now that we have medical printers that can print organs, I can't see why they couldn't print digits and extremities.

Or a brand new eye.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 10:39am

During recessions, the labels push for formula music
Much like during the 80s, they push for music with parameters that match recent hits, so that things start sounding like a copy of a copy of a copy.

Then the alternative movements get a resurgence since artists decide that it's better to do something creative than sell out and produce shit.

It's a tide that ebbs and flows.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 10:54am

Re: Re: Re:
So you're saying people pirate so as to not spend money?

Thanks, that's what we've been saying all along.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 10:55am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Van Gogh may also have been color blind. This article has some interesting "color corrected" before/after pics of a few of his works.

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/27/vincent-van-gogh-colorblind-app_n_1834226.html)
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 10:55am

Re: Re: Re:
Translation:

"Having to pay for what I want to consume is inconvenient."
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 10:58am

Re: Artists becoming famous posthumously is a thing.
Weirdly enough, Dickens was one of the only non-Russian writers Dostoevsky really liked. Hell, he was probably the only non-Russian Dostoevsky liked, period.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 11:06am

Re: If I needed an ear, I would.
The question I have about printing digits is: Who's fingerprints will they have? Could be useful for some.
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David, 6 Aug 2015 @ 11:20am

Re: Artists becoming famous posthumously is a thing.
J.S.Bach's mass in B minor is usually considered his magnum opus, and is his last major completed work. As a "Great Catholic Mass" of old rite, it was unsuitable for performance in Catholic churches when it was written, let alone the Protestant churches of Bach's own religion, and secular performances of large masses were not yet thinkable.

Bach had been dead for longer than he had lived before the work was first performed in full. Handwritten copies of it, however, had been circulating through the hands of several major composers being able to acquire a copy and had been a major prize and influence on them before somebody considered it worth to actually make a printing.

Most of all that would likely have been illegal in our time.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 11:26am

Dozens of ways?
There are now dozens of ways to get content legally and conveniently

[citation needed]
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 11:26am

Re:
"You have to be real fucked up to imagine cutting off the ears and fingers and eyes of the artists that work for you and make you rich."

You'd almost think they looked at them as chattel.
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Spaceman Spiff (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 11:26am

Home sewing?
I loved the "Home Sewing is Killing Fashion" blob. So, if my wife purchases the pattern for a dress, and makes more than one, she is violating their copyright? Man, I'd LOVE to see what she would do to the asshole who suggests that! Most likely, his lips would be stitched to his dick!
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Uriel-238 (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 11:29am

Fingerprints
I'm pretty sure that you submit a genetic sampling (living cells with the genes of the patient.

Since identical twins have different fingerprints, it does mean you could still get different fingerprints from cloned fingers. On the other hand, identification by fingerprints has always been far from foolproof.
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ECA (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 11:48am

Weird
Its funny,
That its been shown that Music artists make little from the corps, and most on Live shows.. And even at that, they dont even get 1/2 the profit from tickets and sales..

Software? How many people Want evaluations and wonder how good a program is BEFORE they buy.. HOw many software sellers, say that IF' you open the Box, you cant return it??
How many software Magazines got PAID to write good reviews??

Movies?? Is it worth your $20+ to got a theater with 1 friend, and watch something from the past 20 years...when 1 in 20 movies was ALMOST good..not great..
Do you make enough money to Goto a theater more then 1 timer per month??

Sports? How much is that seat on the 50 yard line?? For a PUBLIC event converted to a PRivate showing of talent? I would pay $20 at HOME to watch it, with better view, Better Climate, and more beer(and not get arrested)..

What corps want..
For you to pay for every Scrap of Garbage and crap that LET you have..

What you want..
Is to watch/do what you wish, WHEN you wish it, at a reasonable cost..

Difference between MAjor and Minor BRANDS...every advert you see in the Arena, TV, Sign posts, on cars trucks, and tee shirts, YOU ARE PAYING FOR.. And the odds are that Both products are made in/by the same company..and 1 is 1/2 the price.
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Zonker, 6 Aug 2015 @ 11:50am

Re:
You have to be real fucked up to imagine cutting off the ears and fingers and eyes of the artists that work for you and make you rich.
That's just what they do to artists that fail to make enough money on royalties to pay back their advance; send in the debt collector to receive payment in body parts. It's in the contract.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 12:05pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Translation:

"This is a stickup, give me all your money"
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 12:06pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I can translate with the same level of quality assurance.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 12:15pm

Re: Go old school
I'm old enough to remember that episode!

What nobody picked up on: the way that was depicted on the show would result in a recording whose quality would be SHIT! Anybody trying to sell such a recording would get a bad rep in no time and wouldn't make very much.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 12:33pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Having to pay for what I want to consume is inconvenient."

Actually no, it's usually not. Most things today are extremely convenient to buy thanks to technology, creating countless rapidly growing sales and service sectors. It's pretty much just the entertainment industry that has refused and/or failed to leverage technology for the sake of customer convenience, even for some reason going out of its way in an attempt to halt or destroy technological advantages -- at greater expense than embracing them, with zero results.

Honestly, I'm not sure who taught you people how to run a business.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 12:57pm

Re: Re: Re:
Supermarkets have taken over from specialised grocers, bakers and butchers etc., because they are slightly more convenient that the hight street. That is because everything is under one roof, and everything is paid for at once.
The online content sources require a monthly payment to access, which soon adds up, and if you do not use them in any given month, that is money wasted. All the financial management, and trying to guess where to go for what you are looking for make them expensive and inconvenient. The cost one service is not a problem, but the cost of dozens us.
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Woadan (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 1:01pm

Stop destroying the bands I like.

Say no to music industry accountancy.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 1:31pm

"Having to pay for what I want to consume is inconvenient."
Paying is inconvenient when the price is set high on the pretense that human culture is an upscale luxury. Paying is inconvenient when one is too impoverished to have a disposable income of any value -- about 45% of the US last I checked.

The studios and labels seem to be under the illusion that there's alot of money to go around, so they price their media for Donald Trump's grandchildren and Google technicians. Not so much for the clerical worker, or his single-mom manager.

Game of Thrones is a cultural phenomenon because of piracy. It's because the show has been shared and reshared, some vectors of which are considered infringing. If the viewership of GoT was limited to those who could afford it no-one would be talking about it, and tons of secondary media would not be made.

And yet, this is the wish and desire of the labels and studios. Every playback of a song would be compensated per listener. Your personal player is now your own private jukebox. Your personal viewing device is now a box office to sell you a one-use ticket. There's even Kinect technology to count the faces viewing the screen so every household's accout can be correctly charged.

Amusingly, it means that most of us don't get all the referential jokes in the CGI kid movies, because we couldn't afford to see the movie when it was exciting, and didn't care when it was cheap.

PS: Careless choice of words given nothing is actually consumed. Nothing covered by the content providers at any rate.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2015 @ 3:13pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Consume?

This is another one of those bizarre redefinitions like the NSA is so fond of. When I consume a box of cereal, the box is empty. When I listen to a song, the recording is still intact--I didn't "consume" it.
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R.H. (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 8:59pm

Re: Re: Re:
Corneal scarring? Isn't that correctable with a transplant nowadays? I know that the cornea was on the list of things that could be donated when I signed up to be an organ donor.
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Stu, 6 Aug 2015 @ 11:06pm

But these are eight years ago!
I appreciate you've said this earlier in the piece, but wonder if the conclusion merits a reminder: these ads are from a point in time (2007) in a single country (Brazil) - pre-Spotify and iTunes in that market – at what was probably peak industry hysteria about piracy.

A fascinating (and ridiculous) historical document, but strange to use it to draw wider conclusions about the industry in 2015 (which the present tense: "Apparently that message hasn't gotten through, so the industry keeps ramping up the ridiculousness of each campaign" strongly implies you're doing.)

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of stuff to write about strategies nowadays, from ISP-level blocks to the other kinds of education campaigns rightsholders would like to run. But implying these gory ads represent how labels fight piracy in 2015 seems a bit strange.
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PaulT (profile), 6 Aug 2015 @ 11:36pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Translation:

"I have to build a fantasy world where people who object to this bullshit are pirates, because my points are lies in the real world where paying customers are the ones affected and complaining".
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2015 @ 2:54am

Re:
LOL wut?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2015 @ 2:54am

Re: Dozens of ways?
LOL
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Stephen Q. Pickering (profile), 7 Aug 2015 @ 8:55am

Re: Go old school
Yes, that was one of the most horrifying Very Special Episodes. I like that the tape was full of the sounds of popcorn.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2015 @ 9:54am

I would download a car if I could.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Aug 2015 @ 8:44pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
So your alternative is to treat paying customers horribly? To convince them to spend more money? That's your genius business plan?
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Edmonton Guitar Lessons, 13 Aug 2015 @ 12:37am

music
One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.
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Richard Stallman, 20 Aug 2015 @ 11:00am

Let's not call it "piracy"
The outrage should start when they refer to sharing copies as "piracy".
That's a smear term. Sharing is good, and people who share copies
(you, I hope!) don't deserve it.

So let's all refuse to call it "piracy".
See http://gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html.

Also, calling music "content" disparages musical works.
I appreciate music, and that is why I defend the freedom
to share copies of music. I don't want to call musical
recordings "content" as if they were only meant to fill up
a box.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 20 Aug 2015 @ 1:16pm

Amusingly, "Piracy" retains its romanticization too!
Even after the swashbuckling pirates of yore, piracy took a stint providing cheap oysters to restaurants. Oyster companies had secured a tightly held oligopoly in order to drive prices up (sound familiar?) by controlling the beaches where oysters were known to breed. The pirates would raid at night and illegally fish them out.

Legacy content aren't a bunch of artists united to create content, rather they're a bunch of accountants and lawyers who withhold content in order to make it more valuable, in most cases (by far) refusing to pay their own artists and content makers.

Piracy has, since time immemorial, been preying on industries who were less than Randian saints themselves. It's not like the Spanish silver train mined their precious cargo without brutal slave labor.

It's not like the the profits of legacy content were gained morally or are distributed fairly.

Yo ho! All hands! Hoist the colors high!
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Aug 2015 @ 4:00pm

Re: Re: Artists becoming famous posthumously is a thing.
"Bach had been dead for longer than he had lived...Most of all that would likely have been illegal in our time"

Bach lived for 65 years, so "longer than he lived" would be life plus 70, which would put the work in the modern public domain before it wass performed live.
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