The Sky Is Rising: The Entertainment Industry Is Thriving, Almost Entirely Because Of The Internet
from the and-things-keep-getting-better dept
Announcing The Sky Is Rising 2019: a new report offering a detailed look at the entertainment industry.
A funny thing happened on the way to the internet supposedly destroying the entertainment industry. It saved the entertainment industry instead.
A little over seven years ago, we released our first Sky is Rising report for CCIA. At the time, the key point we found in looking at the state of the modern entertainment industry was that the parts that were whining the loudest about how awful the internet was for content were only representing a very small part of the actual content industries. Recorded music may have been struggling as a business, but every other aspect of the music business was thriving. More music was being produced than ever before. More music was being consumed than ever before. More people were spending more money on music than ever before -- just not in the traditional ways. Ditto for video. And books. As we noted back in that original report, if you focused on the supposed true purpose of copyright -- to "promote the progress" of content production -- it was clear that the internet had made that possible a lot more than "copyright" law ever did.
Today, again in partnership with CCIA, we're releasing our brand new Sky is Rising report for 2019, again looking at the state of the global entertainment industry. And, once again, it's thriving. But something big has changed in the past decade or so: even the legacy parts that were struggling when we put together the last report, the parts that were most impacted by the transformative nature of the internet, are now thriving as well. And in basically every case it's because of the internet that the legacy companies have shunned and complained about (not to mention demanded a continuous, never-ending, new set of laws to "tame" the very internet that is saving them).
A few tidbits from the report, though I recommend reading the whole thing. Despite the doom and gloom statements from the industry about how consumers were just "getting stuff for free" and no longer interested in paying for content, the data shows that consumers continue to increase their spending. There was a temporary drop off... but it coincided not with the rise of the internet, but with the 2008 financial crisis:
The recorded music business is often the poster child for an industry "wrecked" by the internet. And you could potentially have made that argument a few years ago if you totally ignored the fact that more people were making and releasing music than ever before. But certainly, "recorded" music revenue had dropped... until, starting around 2014, that turned around. And it's entirely due to streaming music, which last year accounted for nearly half of all recorded music revenue, and continues to grow at an astounding clip. Anyone who says that the internet has destroyed the recorded music business is lying to you:
But, that's not all. As we detail in the report, all other aspects of the music business have continued to thrive -- with much of it being because of the internet. The live music business has continued to grow. Music publishing and performance rights have continued to grow. Music merchandising has become a massive business in its own right. It's literally nearly impossible to find any part of the music business that is struggling these days, despite what some folks in the industry will tell you. Of course, if you're wondering why the RIAA and others changed their talking points from complaining about "piracy" to the made up concept of "the value gap," this is why. They realized that things were going great, and all their talk about piracy killing the industry was increasingly going to ring hollow. So they invented this purely fictional concept of a "value gap" which is basically just whining that other industries are too successful and need to be forced to hand over more money. This too is an old playbook for the RIAA labels, who have spent decades trying to squeeze every penny out of any successful online service, continually insisting that if anyone else makes a dime off of music, it should instead go to the labels.
The video world is another fascinating realm. Netflix and other streaming video providers have helped created the golden age of TV-style programming these days. We detail in the report just how much Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming video services have been spending on content, leading to massive growth in original scripted TV programming. But, it's not just the online streaming services. The number of original scripted TV programs on broadcast, basic cable and premium cable has also risen over the past decade. And this is all happening despite so much competition from other things people can do with their free time:
On the movie side of the coin, box office revenue continues to increase, both in the US and abroad. People are continuing to go to the movies, and more movies than ever before are being created around the globe. There was so much data here, we finally just had to stop adding more to get the report out.
In the past, some people argued that just talking about box office numbers was unfair, because where the internet was really having an impact was in destroying the home video market. There was some amount of irony in that given just how loudly and fiercely the MPAA itself had fought against there ever being a home video market (cue former MPAA boss Jack Valenti's famous Congressional testimony, in which he declared: "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."). That wasn't true back then, and it's certainly not true today either. A few years after Valenti said that, the home video market brought in more revenue than the box office -- and that's still true today. The home video market is growing fast -- and it's almost all because of the internet. Note how much of the market is now subscription based, rather than transactional. That's Netflix's innovation, not the movie studios.
And then there's books. Once again, rather than destroying the market, the internet has saved it. More and more books are being published. Interestingly, in the book market, the story was a bit different than elsewhere. While ebooks and audiobooks are now a significant portion of the book market, physical books seem to be making a bit of a comeback -- and a lot of that has to do with the ability to buy them online.
Indeed, what we found in our research is that a tremendous uptick in new books is coming from authors self-publishing (in 2017, over a million self-published books were released for the first time -- a massive increase over the past decade). Believe it or not, most of those self-published books are available as paper books, rather than ebooks, thanks to internet services like Amazon CreateSpace, Lulu and Blurb.
Indeed, as we saw back in the 2012 report, a huge part of the story of today's entertainment industry is how much is now being driven not by the old gatekeepers, but by the fact that anyone can make use of the internet to create: whether it's video, movies, music, books, or video games, lots of people are using the internet to create, to build an audience, to distribute globally... and to make some money. So many of the new "stars" are coming up via the internet, rather than waiting for some legacy gatekeeper to discover them. That hasn't made those gatekeepers obsolete, but it's certainly taken away some of their leverage.
Back in 2011, we noted that so many people kept referring to their being some sort of "war" between Hollywood and Silicon Valley, but it struck us as odd that Silicon Valley kept coming up with the "weapons" that seemed likely to help Hollywood thrive. Eight years later, the evidence is in: the entertainment industry is thriving. The sky is rising. And Hollywood should be thanking the internet, rather than continuing to attack it at every single turn.
Go check out the full Sky Is Rising 2019 Report for a detailed look at the state of the entertainment industry today.
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Filed Under: books, hollywood, movies, music, sky is rising, tv, video, video games
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Valenti was probably right... just not in the way he thought.
During the 1960s, the population of Boston was between approximately 640,000 and 700,000 people. Statistically, approximately half of them would have been women, and between approximately 65-70% of Americans were children during that time. A bit of quick math gives us approximately 100,000 adult women.
All those possible targets, and the Boston Strangler murdered a grand total of 13 of them.
The VCR was to the American film producer as the Boston Strangler was to the woman home alone: very scary to talk about, but the amount of actual damage done was negligible.
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Give and Take
Some people would rather shut down the internet to stop all piracy than live in a world of abundance where everyone wins.
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Please take your bullshit Google-funded "study" and stick it up your clown ass.
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Re:
Well since you have come here you can do that yourself can’t you? Lol
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Their cut of the profits
Ah, you point to the overall revenue but you forget that greedy Google is getting all the profits with its scandalous margins!
Compare
https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/17q4_sony.pdf
https://www.sony.n et/SonyInfo/IR/library/ar/ar_sony_2000.pdf
In the golden days (1999), Sony was making a nice 5 % profit margin on its Music department. Now (2017) it's only... 16 %!
You wouldn't know how expensive it is to develop streaming platforms and digital restrictions management, compared to printing discs and shipping them around the world.
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Re:
Whatever media company is paying you to troll Techdirt should get their money back.
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Re:
Sorry, all the copyright on ass space is being held by the RIAA-funded studies up your rectum.
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Re: Their cut of the profits
Yeah, but that was 5% of a disc with mostly filler that people had to buy to get the song they actually wanted, while today it's 16% of single plays of that one song they wanted in the first place. Meanwhile, they have to compete not just with their own cartel members, but with musicians over whom they have no direct control!
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Re:
Sorry bub, not everyone are as bent as you are...
I'm sure there's a site somewhere that caters to your specific predilection though...
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'The Sky Is Rising: The Entertainment Industry Is Thriving, Almost Entirely Because Of The Internet'
considering how these same industries have fought tooth and nail to get old laws updated and new laws into place, by doing anything and everything possible from bribery to causing deaths (and yes, the fuckers DID cause suicides to happen because of their continuous harassment!), you'd better not tell them this! they have almost achieved their goal of taking complete control of the Internet, just as they have been after for the last 3 decades, destroying anyone and anything that they felt was in their way. now they have almost got what they wanted, you saying they have been flourishing more because of something they didn't control or own? wow! what a turn up for the books!
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"You wouldn't know how expensive it is to develop streaming platforms and digital restrictions management, compared to printing discs and shipping them around the world."
As one who has developed many services for product distribution, the statement you made is definitely misleading.
Physical distribution cost companies huge amounts of money, even to this day as retailers work toward unifying distribution centers as a way to cut those costs.
Digital distribution has far significant lower operational costs, even if there is a startup cost for web design and hosting (much of this is now outsourced as well, including AWS, Azure, and Google).
What makes digital distribution profitable is because it literally reaches billions, provided the PUBLISHER stops being shitheads and puts their products out there.
Back in the day, VCR movies used to cost $99+ dollars. I still remember Indiana Jones costing $129 if I wanted to own it.
Columbia Pictures, yes, that same movie company, broke the mold and dropped prices to $19.99. The consumer market exploded with purchases. Remember your VCR library?
As technology changed, people's habits also changed. Not too many people rushed to replace their $19.99 VCR tape with a $25 DVD, and yes, prices did go up because movie studios can't help blaming technology for their woes while pushing the prices up because "technology". Physical Bluray prices are ridiculous and there's nothing special about them.
More importantly: people can't stand "movie collections" anymore, and rightfully so. Why deal with having to store movies when it's accessible online?
Unfortunately, movie publishers still haven't figured out this internet thing, including Columbia pictures.
The majority of movies we'd like to watch aren't available online, over a false sense of "piracy" or "lost revenue". Instead, 3rd party companies like Netflix and Amazon Prime are forced to show knock-off movies while trying to get newer releases at a discount.
I remember Reed Hastings once telling shareholders the reason Netflix can't stream newer releases is because the industry was demanding $16 million.
PER. MOVIE!
This insanity is why movie studios whine about "loss": not that piracy was a problem, because no reasonable person in the world would pay that much to license a movie.
Unfortunately, we're now back to these fucking retarded gatekeepers putting up silos and charging access to them.
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Valenti was probably right... just not in the way he thought.
During the 1960s, the population of Boston was between approximately 640,000 and 700,000 people. Statistically, approximately half of them would have been women, and between approximately 65-70% of Americans were children during that time. A bit of quick math gives us approximately 100,000 adult women.
All those possible targets, and the Boston Strangler murdered a grand total of 13 of them.
The VCR was to the American film producer as the Boston Strangler was to the woman home alone: very scary to talk about, but the amount of actual damage done was negligible.
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Re: Physical distribution costs
I guess it wasn't clear. I was being sarcastic. Their margins tripled, things can't be that bad. If anything, they're close to margins which Adam Smith in person would have called typical of a non-free market.
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Re: Give and Take
Some also rather shutdown the internet to perpetuate the control schemes of legacy gatekeepers than let anyone else win. The war on "piracy" is mostly a false-flag used to shutdown or control any perceived competition. However, the gatekeepers losing that fight and some are willing to go nuclear to "win".
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Re: Re: Physical distribution costs
Do I understand that the net margin is 16% (That is all costs, including management salaries, already deduced)... That's a good business to be in!
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Re:
"people can't stand 'movie collections' anymore." Speak for yourself. I love my movie collection. And I laugh as people who scoff at it, when what they want to watch online is suddenly removed.
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Correlates directly with # pirates shut down or JAILED.
1) This would not occur if Masnick's loony "give away and pray" or "sell T-shirts" notions were followed. The only way that profits occur is direct paying.
2) The legal measures to enforce "exclusive right" to control copies is the key.
3) Teh internets is only a distribution channel, has ZERO draw for itself. Masnick as ever attributes water coming out the taps as due to the pipe, nothing else.
4) Only content is a draw.
5) You have written this same schtick at least a dozen times, essentially trying to take credit for industry efforts besides claim that piracy can be ignored. Both are wrong and false.
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The Internet is a communication channel. See the success of WhatsApp, Skype, Signal and other ways to make free (or cheap) video calls.
There is a large draw to information, especially to information about how friends and relatives are doing.
And I don't know why publishers use the word content for the bottled up culture they store in their vaults. It makes it sound that they are just selling a bulk product like potatoes or flour.
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Re: Correlates directly with # pirates shut down or JAILED.
Ah yes, the old "content is king" nonsense. This is not true, and never has been true. The true value in any communications medium is not content, but rather connectivity: the ability for people to use the medium to communicate directly with one another. This is why the Network Effect is a thing, and why the Internet has grown bigger than broadcast in a far shorter span of time.
Connectivity is king, and always has been. Content is just riding its coattails, and people trying to proclaim the superiority of content are usurpers and ought to be treated as such.
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If even one artist — just one! — follows one (or both) of those two philosophies and still makes a profit, your absolutist statement becomes meaningless.
(I would recommend preparing to eat some crow, by the by — I’m sure other commenters will have examples to point out.)
The funny thing is, plenty of high-profile movies, books, games, etc. get pirated all the time — and yet the corporations that own those copyrights still make a profit. (Or do you think Avengers: Infinity War wasn’t pirated because it was profitable?)
So what?
So what?
…and we have become exceedingly efficient at countering your rantings each time one is posted. You should maybe pick up a new hobby. (I suggest craft brewing.)
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Re:
Jailing pirates? You mean like they did in Japan? Oh, right, that didn't happen!
How's that John Steele defense fund coming along, blue?
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Re: Re: Correlates directly with # pirates shut down or JAILED.
Connectivity, not content, is king re music, movies, etc?
That’s a good one...😂
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Well, I guess this just proves the Internet can't always be a benefit to those who use it.
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Re: Give and Take
Macroeconomics is not "everyone," but an average or aggregate. The average SAG-AFTRA member makes $6,000 a year and is advised, literally, not to quit their day jobs. The average self-publisher makes less than $1,000 a year. That's a HOBBY to most. The walls that used to keep people from succeeding also kept them from pursuing their delusional dreams in the first place. NEW content may not even be driving this revenue.
The internet did not magically make any crimes go away, including piracy, and enabled many more, like digital fraud. There is absolutely no justification for piracy, or for allowing the internet to exist in a way that makes copyright unenforceable. What you will get is a world ruled by people like PewDiePie, who don't suffer piracy, and a world without useful books that often take years to compile and reveal valuable formerly-secret information that just remains secret now.
Any good books on tax evasion on the internet? Why not?
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Re:
You do realize that most of the numbers in the report come from the RIAA, IFPI and MPAA itself. Are you suggesting that they are making up their numbers about how successful their own industries are? Because, if so, that would be quite a story...
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Re: Re: Correlates directly with # pirates shut down or JAILED.
If content isn't king, expect crappy content.
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Re:
One person claiming to speak for a "we."
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Re:
The internet has a lot of marketing "information" and MIS-information on it, but quality information has been run off by pirates who eliminated the incentive to produce it.
Content is NOT king, which is why artists have signed away their rights since long before the internet. They want to tap into the large audiences of the big studios and producers.
A thriving industry is macroeconomics that has little to do with the individual. In no way should piracy be justified no matter how well anyone is doing, since that puts money in the hands of organized crime.
Any internet which allows someone to rip off 800+ books and sell them for an average of two cents each is an internet which is already broken. "Breaking the internet" for the pirates means FIXING the internet for the producers, those who make what the pirates take.
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If 800 books are only worth [does the math] $16, they can’t be very good books. And as for the “internet which is already broken” bit: The Internet was designed to transfer information; whether the information being transferred is under copyright ultimately is irrelevant to that primary function.
Yes, because the only good Internet is one where information only flows one way and from “approved” sources such as major corporations~. Independent artists will just have to do without all their fancy distribution networks unless they can fork over thousands upon thousands of dollars to become an “approved” source because who gives a fuck about them otherwise~.
(Question: When you kiss Mickey Mouse’s ass, does it smell like cheese?)
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Digital content is easier to sell, easier to send to the customer,
pc,s ,servers are faster and cheaper to make and to run than in the 90,s .
Through the web , theres a more varied range of product,
old book stores and record stores can only hold a limited range of books, cd,s , dvds.
In central high street locations that are expensive to rent, and insure .
Old cd,s and books had to be scrapped or sold off at a discount.
The old legacy companys dreamt up the value gap
in order to say we need more money from the
new tech companys .google,facebook,youtube,etc who know how to use the internet
and provide ads and service,s , apps that serve the public
other companys .
The money the free market provides
is not enough.
Also the old gate keepers want to return .
Hence the new eu laws designed to block user content
uploads that have not been approved by old legacy corporations .
Too bad if this breaks the web in the eu and blocks fair use
content .
Theres no limited to channels on the internet,
so new artists can thrive even if they only reach a limited audience ,
1000,s of artists are making a living doing podcasts ,streaming
gaming content, making music on soundcloud ,band camp etc
Many comedians, writers started off just making videos on youtube .
And when they attracted fans they were given contracts
to make real tv shows, eg broad city, crazy ex girlfriend etc
This market could be disrupted by the new laws in the eu,
since platforms will now be legally liable for
all content shown on any website in europe .
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Re: Re: Give and Take
"The internet did not magically make any crimes go away"
" There is absolutely no justification for piracy"
" allowing the internet to exist in a way that makes copyright unenforceable"
"What you will get is a world ruled by people like PewDiePie"
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Re: Correlates directly with # pirates shut down or JAILED.
Yes it is, and people will pay people to have new content created. The ability to tell a story in a compelling fashion is whatever media you choose to use is a valuable skill, and once demonstrated can be the basis for gaining support to continue telling new stories. Give content away. and rely on Patreon is a viable business model, at least if you objective is to make a living. It may not be the way to get rich, but enables people to do what they enjoy as a full time job.
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Re: Re: Give and Take
I, John the Plagiarist, care deeply about authros, who write things. Important things. Like me, John the Plagiarist.
My career has been styimied by pirates, who pirate things, and make it ipossible for me to make a living as a writer, who writes things, sometimes things that are not comments on Techdirt. Such as books full of useful information that tke years to compile, like the following, which I wrote all by myself and definitely did not just copy-paste from another source and post as if it were my own work.
Because of the Internet, and filthy, filthy pirates, I, John the Plagiarist, will choose to take my ball and go home and not share my many brilliant insights with the world, except for the several hours a day I spend commenting on Techdirt for free. People do not write things unless they are paid for them, which is why I write so many things that nobody pays me for, or wants.
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Re: Re: Correlates directly with # pirates shut down or JAILED.
Guess a definition of "content" would be helpful here.
One could claim that everything on the internet is content ... data being contained on the internet.
However, I suspect that the word content has become a misnomer for copyrighted material put up for sale by big media players and somehow no longer refers to anything made by those who are not part of the big boy media players.
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Re: Re:
Donald Trump does it all the time, but I have yet to see you going after him for doing it.
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Re: Re:
"quality information has been run off by pirates who eliminated the incentive to produce it"
"A thriving industry is macroeconomics that has little to do with the individual. "
""Breaking the internet" for the pirates means FIXING the internet for the producers"
"those who make what the pirates take."
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Re:
Formatting ... what's that?
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Re:
The "value gap" is the money made by internet infrastructure companies who take a cut of what people spend on entertainment, by being the new gatekeeper. They are like parasites who have overwhelmed the host with regard to piracy of certain content (high-quality, expensive-to-produce, where the artists are paid scale wages or higher before a single cent in revenue is realized), but not other content (cheaply produced viral videos that make social-media stars).
Search is a means to an end, not the end in and of itself. The companies who siphoned all this money off creators are now creating their own material and requiring artists to use them, so not much has changed in that regard. Reviewers (influencers) also make a fortune without ever owning a single copyright, but by directing traffic to those who do. The public generally does not like to think for itself.
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Re: Re: Re:
I wanna be a producer
With a hit show on Broadway
I wanna be a producer
Lunch at Sardi's every day
I wanna be a producer
Sport a top hat and a cane
I wanna be a producer
And drive those chorus girls insane
I wanna be a producer
And sleep until half-past two
I wanna be a producer
And say, "You, you, you, not you"
I wanna be a producer
Wear a tux on opening nights
I wanna be a producer
And see my name, Leo Bloom, in lights
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Re:
"If 800 books are only worth [does the math] $16, they can’t be very good books. And as for the “internet which is already broken” bit: The Internet was designed to transfer information; whether the information being transferred is under copyright ultimately is irrelevant to that primary function."
Except many of the books that were illegally sold were bestsellers at regular prices, by celebrity authors who are already wealthy and obviously either didn't want to publicize the piracy or didn't think they could stop it. It would take the presence of a mainstream, respected journalist to get an answer that isn't a nonsequitur like that.
The person who stole the books didn't have to pay for them, and every time someone downloaded that book, they became an "eyeball" for any advertisements, which is also where money is made (just ask Google). What this did was turn e-books into marketing copy for extremely high-priced, personalized instruction that subsidizes it, instruction available to the wealthy, not the masses.
Article 13 passed because governments lose tax revenue every time a work is pirated. Without copyright protection, those who would have created good material simply won't, leaving the niche to the opportunists and thieves, hardly to the benefit of the public.
It's like the erosion of housing laws due to "tenant screening." Sure, it's legal to sue your landlord if a piece of your ceiling comes crashing down in your kitchen and almost kills you, but are you going to do that if merely filing the lawsuit puts you on a blacklist that means no one will rent to you? The tenant won't complain, will quietly move out, and one day the entire building is going to collapse because no one was there to sound the alarm. Watch the local news and you'll see buildings that DO collapse, or blow up, or burn to the ground, in part because tenants have no practical power to speak up.
Applied to piracy, an author with no practical power to protect his or her work is going to protect it by only doing work that pays well enough to justify its creation, and with valuable information, that means charging exceptionally high prices for content marketed directly to the wealthy, i.e., patronage, which is also what copyright was designed to stop by making it more available to the masses.
If something isn't that good, people have the option not to steal it.
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And if an artist fails to profit from their works, so be it. But at least now they have a better chance to try than they did when media was a completely one-way affair.
So what?
You could say the same thing about automobiles.
I believe in a single justification for piracy: When you buy digital content (or a “license” to that content) but the content is “unreadable” without jumping through a bunch of hoops (or is destined to become “unreadable”) due to Digital Restrictions Management, pirating a copy of the work you purchased is absolutely justified.
The Internet exists that way because it was ultimately designed to be an information-sharing network. Whether that information is covered by copyright is, and always will be, largely irrelevant. And if you cannot enforce copyright without turning the Internet into a one-way broadcast medium controlled by the same corporations that controlled pre-Internet media in the exact same way, maybe rethinking copyright is the proper thing to do. After all, if copyright can be destroyed by the Internet…well, you know the rest.
Do you mean “independent artists who make a name for themselves without relying on corporations to do it for them”? Because I would rather have them doing their thing, even if I dislike it, than be force-fed bland corporate slush because independent artists had to be sacrificed on the altar of copyright.
I have to wonder how many such “useful books” were left unpublished because the major book publishers passed on them.
Try Nintendo’s website; I hear Yoshi is an expert on the subject.
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Re: Re: Re: Correlates directly with # pirates shut down or JAIL
If content isn't king, expect crappy content.
Want to know the difference between YouTube, Tik Tok, and multi-million dollar movies is?
I decide what content is "king", not the creator.
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Re: Re:
The value gap you define is akin to whatever package delivery system the brick and mortar folks used, mail, UPS, freight companies, etc.. They still had to get the movies to the theaters, or the DVD's to the store, or records, or books. That the Internet does those thing (for digital at least) cheaper is to their benefit, not harm. They haven't yet figured out how to capitalize on that as yet.
Search engines are like phone books, except they cover a lot more area. When one wanted to find the nearest record store, one could look it up in the phone book. The search engine I use doesn't have advertising, so blaming search engines for 'stealing' those advertising dollars is a misnomer. Have you ever heard of or used the 'Yellow Pages'? It's all ads, and none of that ad money goes to producers.
The reviewers you refer to don't work for entertainment producers, they tend to work for publications, newspapers, magazines, TV or cable or radio channels, and while they might be influencer's, the bigger one is word of mouth. When the legacy media companies force the take down of anyone mentioning one of their 'properties' on the Internet, they lose that word of mouth and don't even realize they are doing it to themselves.
You may be able to, in your own closed mind, justify any characterization, but that doesn't mean anyone in the real world is going to buy your reasoning. The rest of use use reality, logic and reason to build our views.
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How would having a “mainstream” journalist around get you any better an answer than the one I gave you?
They might have had adblockers on, you never know. (Also: Adblockers are an actual thing.)
Yes, yes, we all know that you are a scam artist who is upset that all his “secrets” got leaked on a CD-ROM in Africa for mere pennies. What scam do you specialize in: Ponzi schemes or mail fraud? Or are you one of those pick-up artist douchecanoes that teaches guys how to “persuade” consent out of women who are “playing hard-to-get” by saying “no”?
[citation needed]
[citation needed]
(Also: I consider anything I create to be in the public domain for anyone to use as they wish. If I can monetize it, cool; if not, I can make something new and try again.)
No. No, it is not.
Patreon is already a thing. Try to keep up.
And yet, copyright has evolved into a system where a copyright term lasts longer than the lives of everyone who initially experienced a given creative work, which ultimately robs “the masses” of the chance to (legally) use that creative work as a springboard for their own creativity, which is one significant way that culture moves forward. Avengers: Endgame will eventually enter the public domain (and this is assuming no changes to the length of a copyright term crop up between now and then) sometime in the early 22nd Century; how many people going to see it on its opening weekend do you think will live long enough to see that happen?
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Re:
"How would having a “mainstream” journalist around get you any better an answer than the one I gave you?"
Well someone here MIGHT say that a book that sold a few million copies at $25 each "couldn't be that good" if it was stolen and sold for two cents, but if they did, the journalist would have a field day picking apart the logic.
This site put up the article about tenants who had sued landlords being blacklisted, so you're really just saying the author of that piece was wrong.
Doesn't matter anyway: Article 13 passed, and piracy will be stopped one way or another, except for those who are simply determined to break the law.
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Re: Re: Give and Take
You got data to support that? Also, remember how averages work, one or two who make only a small amount of money drag the average down. So your data needs to show, specifically, that X number of people make less than $1,000 a year, while Y number of people make more than $1,000 a year. Saying the "average" person is meaningless otherwise.
So you're against people pursuing their dreams? Who are you to decide they are delusional? Some people, like Youtubers, had a dream to do Youtube videos. Some didn't even care if they made it big or not, they just wanted to. If they were prevented from pursuing that dream, they never would have been on Youtube or made it big like some of the big names out there today.
Facts, data, and statistics please.
No one said they did.
I'm sorry, are you seriously making the argument that just because some new thing was given to people and that some people used it to commit "new types" of crimes (because of the new thing) that we should never give people new things? I laugh in your general direction.
This completely ignores the massive benefits the internet has brought with it that, quite literally, far outweigh any new crimes or downsides. That's not to say we should do nothing to prevent those crimes, but saying the internet is garbage solely because some people figured out how to do some bad things with it is preposterous.
Well, actually, there is. Do you recall tape/CD copying/ripping in the 80s and 90s? It allowed people to share new music to friends/family who got introduced to music they liked and subsequently went and bought new albums and concert tickets. Free advertising. Now not all piracy can be justified, but when Ed Sheeran and other artists are encouraging fans to copy and freely share their work, I'd say there is at least some justification for it.
Human existence makes copyright unenforceable. Are you suggesting the human race should not be allowed to exist because they infringe copyright? That's cute. Just because there are challenges, doesn't make it bad.
Have you heard of Wikileaks? I hear they "reveal valuable formerly-secret information" that is now public knowledge.
And it's hard to suffer piracy when you give your work away for free, essentially. It costs me nothing to go watch one of his videos and I can even download it for free and share it if I want. Perhaps he found a business model that works better and is more resilient to piracy. Perhaps that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
Actually, there are.
Because you don't know how to use a search engine?
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You missed an important point here...
The fact that more is being spent per household does NOT mean that more content is being consumed; it only means that the cost is going up - usually for LESS content per dollar spent. As such, the industry itself may not be making nearly as much money as the delivery men are charging so much more...
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Re:
This would actually have weight if you could prove your claims while also proving that the industry's own provided numbers are somehow false, making them liars.
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Article 13 will do nothing to directly target piracy. If anything, it will only target existing legal websites offering legal services that might be used by a small subset of users for the purpose of copyright infringement. Existing “pirate sites” will not be affected because…well, if they could be affected by pre-13 copyright and anti-piracy laws, they already would be.
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Re:
I've got another: works that are still under copyright but out-of-print and unlikely to be reprinted in the foreseeable future.
Jack Kirby wrote and drew a comic book series based on 2001: A Space Odyssey at Marvel in the 1970s. It's never been collected, and it's never been reprinted. As it was a licensed comic and the rights have long since expired, it is unlikely that it will ever be collected or reprinted.
If I grab a torrent of those comics, none of the creators or rightsholders are losing out on any sales. Marvel and MGM aren't losing out on a sale, because there is no way to buy the book from them. Jack Kirby, Stanley Kubrick, and Arthur C Clarke are not losing out on their cut from a sale, because they are dead. (And also because Marvel didn't pay Jack Kirby royalties, but that's a whole other topic.)
The comic isn't difficult to find on eBay -- I see an auction right now that's got the complete run in Good/Very Good condition with the bidding currently at $30 with a couple days left to go, and another complete run in Very Fine/Near-Mint condition with a Buy it Now price of $100 -- so I suppose that if John the Plagiarist wanted to make a very sincere argument that piracy hurts legal markets, he could argue that piracy is competing with the nice people on eBay who are selling used comic books, and driving down the price they can get for those used comic books. But this would be a foolish argument, as the market for collectors is not the same as the market for readers. Someone who just wants to read Kirby's 2001 will find it online, sure, but someone who wants to own Kirby's 2001, for their collection, will still want to buy it; merely owning a digital copy will not satisfy a collector.
(You see the same thing among collectors of other media; for example, there's a thriving market for used video games -- and rare and sought-after ones can get quite expensive! -- even though the ROMs aren't hard for pirates to find online.)
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Re: Re: Give and Take
There is absolutely no justification for piracy, or for allowing the internet to exist in a way that makes copyright unenforceable.
Case and point - AC would rather see the internet shut down that see anything shared. TY for so clearly demonstrating my point!
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Another example is Capcom’s 1994 arcade beat-’em-up Alien vs. Predator. The game was never released on any home console (though it was planned for the Sega 32X at one point), and given the myriad of legal hurdles that would likely be involved in getting those licenses together again for the sake of re-releasing the game, I doubt it ever will be. That means the only legal way to play it is to find an actual AvP arcade cabinet — and a 25-year-old arcade game is likely hard to find these days, never mind finding one in fully playable condition.
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The basic question is whether or not piracy should be tolerated, and the answer is no, it should not.
When piracy occurs, the priority is to stop it, not work around it.
Anyone who objects to this priority should take it up with government, but Article 13/17 says they already have their minds made up.
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Napster died; piracy lived.
Limewire and its brethren died; piracy lived.
The Pirate Bay died, lived, died again, and so on; piracy lived.
If anyone can stop piracy for good, they have yet to prove it. You are doing no better at the task than anyone else.
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Re:
The idea behind stopping crime is to stop SOME of the crimes, not all. It's like taking out the trash, as more will pile up, but keeping the pile as small as possible is the goal.
There is no justification for piracy. It is a crime for a reason. It's the theft of someone's hard work by a parasite who belongs in prison, or bankruptcy.
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Re:
Every time I go to the used bookstore, I think "This is not sending any money to the publishing companies." And I grab a few more, and thank the shop keeper for enabling this piracy.
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Piracy, a.k.a. copyright infringement, is not theft. If it were, the cached version of any website that you store on your computer would technically be theft of that website’s content, seeing as how you probably lacked explicit permission from the copyright holder to create that cached copy for yourself.
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Re: Re:
It's amazing how wrong someone can be, you didn't get one thing right in the above sentence.
I have to ask, do you just take random things and put them into a sentence and hope that it'll make sense or do you actually believe in what you write? Either way, you need some serious help connecting with reality.
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Re:
The basic question is, does the need of the few supersede the needs for everyone else?
You are a proponent for the few, so don't expect everyone else to agree with you.
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Re: Re:
Sometimes you have to move the goalposts to reduce crime.
It used to be legal to free slaves. Plantation owners made those laws, and the government enforced them.
It used to be illegal to smoke pot.
Bad laws need to be changed.
You can shout "Piracy is a crime!" all day but you haven't convinced anyone it's harmful, Smith. Your solution is criminalization sharing and shutting down the interwebs.
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Re: Speaking Of tax dodges
Didn’t you used to write books self help books bro? I do wonder on what subject did you pontificate about?
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Re:
You do seem to have an anal fixation bro.
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Re: Re:
Really? Then do tell why the INTERNET is the place to go for hobbyists, enthusiasts, and professionals to find relative, accurate information for the various questions they have and to further their knowledge and information of their selected subject.
I supposed all those "how-to" guides and videos are completely inaccurate then? It's just dumb luck people were able to repair their cars or homes after watching or reading them online?
Make. Up. Your. Mind.
Then why are artists constantly giving away their work for free and, in some cases, encouraging their fans to copy and share it?
Do you not understand how piracy works? Pirated works aren't "sold" for any amount of money. They are given away free. If someone is selling them then they are either a legit reseller or a scam artist. But NOT a pirate.
Please explain how this is limited to the internet and not something which has been going on since the beginning of the human race. Only then does this assertion hold any truth.
And also breaking it for the average joe, ruining what made the internet great and allowed EXPONENTIALLY LARGER numbers of people to make money plying their art. Sorry but producers can eat it. What you want is a few large corporations dictating who wins and who loses and doesn't stop piracy at all. Or do you not remember tape/disk sharing/copying/ripping?
Please cite statistics proving that 90+% of internet users are just a bunch of filthy pirates who don't pay for anything.
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Re: Self awareness continues to evade you blue balls
“You have written this same schtick at least a dozen times”
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Re: Re: Re: Correlates directly with # pirates shut down or JAIL
And here you are...
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Re: Re: Give and Take
You really love that idiot, don't you?
Nobody copies his stuff because it's garbage, not because he's special and somehow immune to plagiarism.
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Re: Re: The Royal We
You’ve done it in this very thread bro...
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All or nothing
While more and more is being created than ever before, with countless people who would have been making nothing making if not a living then at least some extra money they wouldn't have otherwise had under the previous system, the 'problem' is that the parasitic gatekeepers are self-entitled jackasses, who believe that most if not all of it should be going to them, and that they deserve to always make more today than they made yesterday.
If it's not being created by people leashed to them, then it doesn't count. If they aren't getting the lion's share(if not all) of the profits then they might as well not be getting anything. They could control 99% of all distribution, and get 99% of all profits, and they'd still be declaring that that 1% left was going to destroy them any day now, and needed to be snuffed out before society itself was brought down thanks to it's nefarious machinations.
In a bit of a warped way, the fact that they are flailing about so much could be seen as a good sign, as it demonstrates just how desperate they're getting with the various platforms and services allowing more and more people to bypass them entirely, leading to a new flavor of desperate lies in the form of the mythical 'value gap' in an attempt to hamstring and poison the perception of those platforms/services and drive people back to them.
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Re: Yawn-o-Rama
And next your gonna throw a hissy about revenge poem and and that fake threats about the president. Get some new game bro. Your bullshit is weak, impotent, and decrepit, much like you.
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Re: Remember when you didn’t care about article 13
“except for those who are simply determined to break the law.”
And all those people who break it unknowingly or accidentally. But that’s the first time you’ve admitted 13 won’t do shit. Baby steps crybaby Jhon. But progress is progress bro.
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Re: Undisputed heavyweight king of projection
“The public generally does not like to think for itself.”
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Re: Re:
Yes, an eyeball who saw an advertisement for the author's work (the book they downloaded) and probably went on to buy more of their work that had not yet been pirated. Assuming they liked it of course.
There are no advertisements in piracy other than for the author's own work. Saying otherwise just shows you don't know how piracy works. Pirates don't advertise themselves or other pirates. It's kind of counterproductive to keep being a pirate and not landing in jail.
Yes, we know. They were bribed by legacy entertainment industries. To not pass it would have been to cut off all that nice lobbying money.
Tell that to Shakespeare, Bach, Mozart, Da Vinci, Aristotle, etc....
Yes. Because getting blacklisted due to landlord incompetence and holding him accountable for it is not reality.
[Citation needed]
My local news has had no such stories.
Allow me to introduce you to all the artists on Patreon, Deviantart, Soundcloud, etc... who don't get paid hardly anything for their work, they just enjoy creating.
That is quite the leap of logic you have going on there.
They also have the option to not buy it.
Check and mate.
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Re: old impotent man yells and clouds film at 11
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Connectivity is king, and always has been. Content is just riding its coattails, and people trying to proclaim the superiority of content are usurpers and ought to be treated as such.
I wouldn't treat either side as inherently 'better' than the other, as done right they operate in a symbiotic relationship.
Doesn't matter how good(or bad) your stuff is if no-one can find it.
Doesn't matter how easy it is to find stuff, if nothing that can be found is something people want.
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Re:
Ah, so artists shouldn't be allowed to give away their work for free as part of a promotion or a marketing ploy? Because, you know, that's piracy.
Better lock up all those content creators who give their work away for free then.
Yes, they have. They have decided to shut down any creators smaller than Facebook and Google. Meanwhile, in the US, the government says artists are free to give away content if they so choose as part of a marketing campaign to get people to buy their other works.
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Re: All or nothing
Big Tech is the new "parasitic gatekeeper." Also influencers don't own a single copyright, yet they make money, so it's not just about rights, but distribution and controlling traffic through influence or technology (the latter can be copied so the former is actually stronger).
There is way too much content out there as it is. Stuff that used to be rejected now stands alongside that which used to be popular. Sometimes that's good as it gives a voice to those who deserve one, but sometimes it's just noise. We will always have gatekeepers because the public doesn't want to sift through the mud to find the nuggets worth keeping.
None of this means that piracy should ever be tolerated, though. That's just pure theft.
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Re: Re: You get nothing, good day sir
Bitching and moaning ain’t gonna make your duck work and it ain’t gonna bring back your scam mail list bro. Keep crying though, it’s mildly entertaining.
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Um, no. Unless they live in/create their works in a country where copyright is only conferred by way of government registration, their content is covered by copyright upon publication. Thanks, Berne Convention!
Does that mean…copyright is unnecessary to monetize creative works?
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Re: Re: Re: You get nothing, good day sir
To what are you referring? Nothing, obviously.
Which mailing list, for which product?
This is why Masnick isn't taken seriously in journalism circles. His comments section is full of ad-hominems which are libelous and nonsensical, and full of anonymous verbal aggression the speaker would lack the nerve to ever use in public.
All the poster proves is it has an axe to grind against those who believe copyrights should be enforced. There's no need for histrionics, as the lack of them just shows how rabid the poster is in its illogical attacks.
If anyone is gloating now it's those who supported Article 13.
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Re:
All poodles may be dogs, but all dogs are not poodles.
Logic has no use in a debate where people just resort to insults, however.
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Re:
To clarify, I meant that reviewers (influencers) don't own the copyrights to what they review, yet make money off THOSE copyrights.
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Re: Re:
"Ah, so artists shouldn't be allowed to give away their work for free as part of a promotion or a marketing ploy? Because, you know, that's piracy."
Artists who give away their work for free are not committing the crime of piracy. One has nothing to do with the other.
The artist also makes money off the distribution list, to which they can sell advertising. Network television has made many billions this way.
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Re: Re:
So copyright is unnecessary to monetize creative works then.
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Re: Re:
Technically no, they're not. They are making money off of their review, which is not the same as the copyrighted content they are reviewing.
I see no issues with this.
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They do, however, own the copyrights to their reviews.
I suppose you’ll be holding a séance to yell at Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, then.
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…says the asshole who once advocated for executing copyright infringers.
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Re: Re:
Copyright enhances the lives of those who enjoy it as entertainment (tons of other stuff is also protected, btw), so it's not just a "few." The tax revenue funds society, the work creates jobs, etc.
If you have a problem with copyright law, take it up with the government. Article 13 and SOPA show where they stand. All the noise the internet made against Article 13 accomplished...absolutely nothing.
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…fucking what
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Re:
Did you notice Google no longer caches websites?
Ever wonder why?
Of course it's theft. It's theft of the content, not the medium. The content is the product of the hard work of its creator, whose right to control its distribution while protected by copyright is absolute. It's theft of the audience with which the artist is supposed to connect, with that audience and any revenue associated with it going to organized crime instead of someone who legitimately created the work, plus those who steal it are paying less than those who bought it legitimately.
That's the very essence of crime.
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Re:
Caches are exempt as transitory, but the cache from a pirated copy on a website is infringement.
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Re: Re: Re:
“The artist also makes money off the distribution list, to which they can sell advertising. ”
Only scam artists did that bro.
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Re: Re: Re:
Wow, proof by assertion.
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Re: Re: Re:
Search engines are more profitable than a lot of what people search for. That's a "value gap" or a tolltaker taking a cut for something that could be done without them. The internet functioned just fine before Google came along. People got the word out just fine, just not through a bot-driven engine.
If every website on the internet were a search engine, how well would they do?
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Re: All projection and no thrust.
“His comments section is full of ad-hominems which are libelous and nonsensical, and full of anonymous verbal aggression the speaker would lack the nerve to ever use in public.”
But enough about threatening to rape mentally disabled people bro.
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Re: Re: All or nothing
Please provide citations on "Big Tech" deciding who can and can't make money on the internet. Because as far as I'm aware, all the platforms that people are making money on these days are open to all comers.
If by influencers you mean reviewers (as you clarified below) they do actually own copyrights. They own copyrights to the reviews that they make. So you're wrong again.
And what does this have to do with anything? With online platforms, everyone has equal access to distribute their work to the entire global population.
That is your subjective opinion. It counts for nothing and proves nothing other than your own opinion. Others, including myself, disagree with you. I enjoy seeing what new things people are going to create. There have been many cool new shows, movies, books, art, etc... that have been recently created by indies that I have enjoyed far more than a lot of recent legacy entertainment produced drivel.
So? This is not a bad thing. Different strokes for different blokes and all that. And yes, even what I consider to be legacy entertainment drivel certainly has appeal to someone. Reality shows for instance.
And those things that used to be popular probably still are. But seriously, how often can you watch the same movie over and over and over and over again? And people's tastes change over time too.
Noise is neither good nor bad. And everything in that noise will likely appeal to someone but not everyone.
What gatekeepers? I see no gatekeepers on the internet.
I will give you that SOME people don't want to sift through the mud, but sometimes that sifting makes finding that nugget all the sweeter. And what may be mud to you, may be gold and diamonds to someone else. The fact that I'm seeing far more quality content than ever before is a testament to the enabling power of the internet for creators. Take that away and you've just set artistic creation back 50 years.
Again, tell that to artists who give their work away for free and encourage their fans to share/copy it. It's not theft if nothing was stolen.
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Re: Re: Re:
Not all pirated works leave the creator's name intact. Some alter that information and the public is unaware. I've seen this many times.
Just because some create content as a hobby that does not justify piracy. It means that entertainment is a hobby, and the quality of the work shows.
Let's say someone gave you ten stock picks and nine of them doubled within a year. Now they say they've written a book which explains their method. How much would that book be worth? You can't say "prove yourself" because they just did, and they can spend forever doing that.
Let's say someone gave you a method for tripling your money in two years buying real estate, and proved themselves by making fifteen picks and thirteen of them did just that. How much would that book be worth?
In a world without piracy, they could publish the book and get rich. In a world WITH piracy, they have no choice but to just dangle the FREE MONEY in front of the public until someone's greed kicks in and they'll pay ANY price for the hope of getting rich. Have you seen how internet marketing works? There are entire forums dedicated to giving away e-books or selling them at very low prices to get distribution lists.
Now if you say ALL of these products are scams, that's a separate argument, but we know they aren't. Beat The Dealer was published in 1962 and taught card-counting. People made millions for over a decade before the casinos started kicking people out, and even after that the MIT group found another way to do it and made millions more. Someone else found a way to leverage the lottery when it had a jackpot and made millions. If they published their method, what would it be worth?
There is extremely valuable information out there. How to get hired at a big tech company, for one. What's a six-figure job worth to someone currently making a fraction of that? The whole point of books is to transfer valuable information to people. Without copyright, there's no profit in using books to teach people. The "new business model" is to drop hints, just enough proof to convince a whale to part with a large amount of money, i.e., a patron, not an audience.
The how-to books you see now contain very little information, and are just marketing copy for more expensive seminars, such as how to get cast in Hollywood, how to get published, etc. Not very easy to call someone a scam if their stocks keep doubling, and if you think no one is going to grab that bait once they see someone doing it, you're wrong.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: You get nothing, good day sir
What journalism circles would those be? The ones that quote him in mainstream newspapers/tv news segments/etc...? I'm sure they only quote him to mock him, right? Right?
The only matching all those adjectives and adverbs here is you. Everyone else is pointing out your lies and logical fallacies. Neither of which has anything to do with Masnick's journalistic street cred.
Like your axe you've been grinding against TD and Mike for who knows how long?
And yet in all your rabid rantings and ravings, you've yet to provide one shred of evidence that even remotely supports your assertions that we're wrong. Meanwhile we've linked to and provided multiples.
Give it a few months when their glorious plan horribly backfires on them and we'll see who is gloating. Because I guarantee you it will backfire.
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Copyright does little to enhance people’s lives. It does, however, keep decades-old books, movies, songs, and other creative works — works that could be digitized, then endlessly reproduced by and distributed to the public — locked away in a vault to rot and disappear.
A lot of the video games I played as a child would be public domain by now if we still had sensible copyright terms (i.e., 28-year terms). The only reason many of those games still exist in any form is because of people willing to archive and distribute them, even though their efforts to preserve gaming history when gaming companies either can or would not are illegal. Hell, damn near the entirety of the classic arcade gaming scene would be lost without MAME and ROM sharing. And I will not even get into the game-modding scene — which, again, is technically illegal.
So tell me again: How, exactly, does copyright improve the lives of people?
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Re: Can’t even remember you own scams bro
“There's no need for histrionics”
Then why do you keep getting hysterical and threatening to rape people bro?
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Re: Poor crybaby jhon
Someone’s mad that his scam tactics got picked up by bigger better scammers.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
It’s more proof that you’ve ever offered boy.
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Re: Classic felony interference of a business model
“It's theft of the audience with which the artist is supposed to connect”
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Re: Re: Re:
Goddamn boy pace yourself. You’re gonna run out of sad bitter tears before your afternoon nap.
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Re: Re: Re:
Artist A puts a song up on the pirate bay for download. Or fling copies of their albums into a concert crowd for their fans? How is this any different from what pirates do? Pirates get an author's work for free. Artists putting their works out there for free give said author's work to anyone for free. I see no difference here.
Artists today don't have distribution lists and they certainly don't make money off them. Ask any Youtuber, artist on DeviantArt, Patreon, SoundCloud, etc....
You really don't understand how artists make money today, do you? Nobody makes money off selling advertising except legacy TV and newspapers who advertising companies pay to run their ads. No individual user is ever going to "buy" an advertisement, they are going to buy a product being marketed by an ad.
Regardless, artists don't advertise via distribution lists these days. Distribution lists are dead. Get over it.
Yes, network television, which advertising companies, NOT artists, pay to run their ads. This literally has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. Network television is a dying breed and plays no part in how the majority of artists make money these days.
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ya think??
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The Internet Archive still does. How much do you plan to sue them for, given that they will probably end up archiving and displaying your copyrighted material (i.e., your comments) for all the world to read?
Please explain how making a digital copy of a digital file is theft of the “master copy” when making the illicit copy neither deletes the master copy or puts control of the master copy in the hands of the copier.
I’ll wait.
You really want to avoid admitting that a not-zero number of people who pirate creative works end up supporting the creator of those works, don’t you, Squidward? (Again: I saw The Dark Knight in theaters twice and I bought the DVD, and I pirated the movie to watch it again in the interim.)
Please explain how the money I do not transfer to an artist/distributor in exchange for their work — every last cent of the cost of their work that is still in my bank account — goes directly to organize crime if I pirate said work.
I’ll wait.
The same could be said of people who buy stuff from thrift stores. Will you now be calling for the closure of those?
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Re: Re: Give and Take
I think you've lost sight of something here. Copyright does not exist to help provide a limited set of people with a full-time job: it exists to promote progress in design and expression. You do touch on that here:
Now. Imagine a world where ANYONE can publish useful information and get paid for it. Sure, they're not going to be able to make a full-time living slowly releasing a trickle of "formerly-secret" information to the general public; they're going to have something that they do in their regular life and are an expert at, and say "hey, I could make a bit more on the side by self-publishing this!" And then suddenly their annual income goes up by $1,000/year and they have incentive to try that again in the future.
What it cuts out is situations where some publishing house says "sure, I'll publish your information, but it isn't valuable enough on its own. So sell it to us, and we'll combine it with similar information we've bought from others and sell the whole thing." As a result, that publishing house, which has done nothing other than be a broker, makes a bunch of money, some of the original authors make $1,000/year, and many potential authors never bother to publish their "secret" information.
Then the publication lags in quarterly earnings and the publisher stops doing new runs, and bam! ALL that hoarded information is no longer available.
What I'm saying here is that the arguments you make about monetary reimbursement and motivation, piracy and publication go two ways. Sure, you'll have some people who will be worse off with digital publishing. But you'll have many many more people who will be better off because of it. And the gatekeepers who enable the few to make a living off of information brokering also prevent the natural flow of that same information.
In the future, information brokers won't be needed. What WILL be needed is information analysts and "translators" -- people who can find the signal in all the noise.
We can already see that today, with YouTube personalities who tell others things they already know becoming superstars. The information is out there; it's all about how it's packaged.
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Let’s say your examples sound like a scam artist trying to ply his trade. How much would your comments be worth?
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…there would be no Internet to search for, you monumental dumbass.
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Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
"Please provide citations on "Big Tech" deciding who can and can't make money on the internet. Because as far as I'm aware, all the platforms that people are making money on these days are open to all comers."
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/20/18270891/google-eu-antitrust-fine-adsense-advertisi ng
It's time to do a methodical dismantling of Masnick's credibility, and highlight both the juvenile nature of his writing, and the comments section, with both its vicious personal attacks, and claims like the above poster's. The mainstream media will probably eat it up since it shows "internet journalism" to be purely second-class.
Masnick seems more interested in money though, or he'd never let this happen.
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Re: Re: All or nothing
Cable television is like that as well, and it is all professionally made content, and that is being paid for by cable subscribers.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Because it's so hard to tell whether Marvel made that latest Avenger's movie everyone is pirating. This is dumb beyond belief. A quick internet search is all you need to find out who wrote/created something, and if they plastered a fake name on it, it becomes pretty evident quickly. Which again, defeats the entire purpose of piracy. People pirate content they already know about, they aren't going to be duped by fake creator names.
Name one.
Putting words in my mouth, I didn't say that. What I did say is that piracy does have justification in certain scenarios, and listed one.
Yes. A work's quality should stand on its own, not whether it was released by a major publisher, an indie, or pirated off the net. It doesn't matter.
About $0. Because frankly, all they proved is that they got lucky 9 out of 10 times.
Whatever the public market deems it to be worth. Which could be anywhere from $0 - who knows based on its content.
No, they couldn't. If piracy didn't exist, there is still no guarantee that anyone would buy their book, which is required for them to make money. Eliminating piracy does not guarantee them monetary income.
Uh, yeah, that doesn't change if piracy goes away. That's how it works. You don't make money if nobody buys your stuff.
I have, but you apparently have not.
Yeah, these are all scammers and not legitimate artists. Legitimate artists don't do that.
Legitimate artists give away e-books or sell them at very low prices and say "hey, if you liked that, I've also written these other books, so come check me out!". Nobody legitimate does distribution lists anymore because it's not an effective marketing tactic.
No, the majority of them are. Legitimate artists don't do that. Look at all the artists on Youtube, Deviantart, soundcloud, Patreon, Amazon, etc... Prove me wrong.
[Citation needed] Also, I've never heard of that book.
This is all a very narrow group of content that can be labeled as "self-help" or "get-rich" quick schemes. Or just flat out scammers teaching you how to scam others. This is not the same as actual artists making music, videos, paintings, digital/physical art, or other forms of entertainment.
My take away from this is your "get rich quick" scheme fell through and now you're mad because you can't scam anyone with your books because people got wise to you and others like you and blocked all your spam from your distribution list in their spam filters.
All easily available within five minutes on the internet.
Unless there is some magic lamp that grants your wish of getting hired at a tech company, there is no 100% fool proof method for this or anything else.
It's worth whatever amount of hard work they are willing to put in to make their dreams come true. Anyone selling a "sure fire way" is a scammer.
As is the point of the internet. And cat memes.
So switch to an online e-book model where there is zero cost to publish.
No, that's really not it. That's called a scam and isn't what the majority of creators on the internet are doing. But advertising yourself and your products is, and always will be, a valid business model.
Because people recognize them for the scam they are and most of that information is now public knowledge and freely available on the internet. Why would they pay for worthless information?
Because they hire everyone who follows that method. Right. Not.
Create free seller store on Amazon and upload book. There, you're published.
Show me someone who did this and I'll show you how they got lucky or made wise investments. Neither of which can be found in your "get rich quick" books.
We call those people gullible and people like you selling it to them, scam artists because 95% of people who follow those books, pay more money "learning" how to make it big than actually making it big.
If those books worked, everyone in the world would be a millionaire, but their not and they don't work.
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Re:
Same as they've always been, $0.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Value gap: The perceived gap in value between selling music vs. revenue from streaming - which has jack all to do with internet infrastructure companies.
And claiming internet infrastructure companies are gatekeepers?!? I can only come to the conclusion that you make shit up as you go.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
That link says absolutely nothing about Google deciding who can and can't make money on the internet.
Did you think I wouldn't read it or was stupid enough to take you at your word?
Why? So far he's been pretty accurate and his facts and assertions are independently verifiable.
Show me how it is juvenile.
Careful now, you just lumped yourself in that group.
Again, that would be you.
Yes, which is why journalism is increasingly going online and is, in fact, the only place you can read about a lot of things today. Not to mention that "mainstream media" constantly quotes internet journalism sources.
Yes, because he makes so much money doing this.
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Re: Re: Undisputed heavyweight king of projection
“The public generally does not like to think for itself.”
Hahahahaha - yes, I imagine that is exactly what many politicians think and then use as justification for their nefarious activities. We politicians have to tell the commoners what to do because they are too dumb to think for themselves ... what a crock. And then these folk are shocked to find out that some lowly commoners actually know more than they do.
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Re: Re:
The idea behind stopping crime is to stop SOME of the crimes, not all. It's like taking out the trash, as more will pile up, but keeping the pile as small as possible is the goal.
This sounds like you're talking about the "broken windows theory of policing." You know, the theory that was popular in the 80s/90s, but has since been almost entirely debunked:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-problem-with-broken-windows-policing/
The point of copyright law is to enable more creative output. Period. This report shows that the INTERNET is enabling more creative output. As a bonus the industries associated with content are ALSO making more money, though that's not the official reason behind copyright.
In short, even with piracy, we're getting a bonanza of content and the industries around it are raking in money. I like how you're now moving the goalposts (very far) from the earlier talk about how piracy was "killing" these industries. It never was. But you can't let go so you have to glom onto the debunked "broken windows" theory that all bad stuff is bad. Nope.
There's a reason lots of stores have basically stopped fighting shoplifting. The cost of doing so greatly outweighs any benefit. It appears the same may be true of fighting piracy. The benefits to embracing the internet are huge. The actual cost of "piracy" is minimal. Focus on enabling more good stuff, and the "problems" of the bad stuff are minimized naturally, without overspending on useless and ineffective "enforcement."
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Re: Re: Re:
The thing is, you are arguing that the rights of the few supersedes the rights of everyone else. You have even said that content not put forth through a publisher is mostly trash or to that effect. Which means you don't give a shit about everyone else, only the legacy copyright industries.
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Re: Crybaby Jhon is having a real tantrum today
“It's time to do a methodical dismantling of Masnick's credibility,”
You have been trying and failing to do that for a year and change bro.
“and the comments section, with both its vicious personal attacks”
Why yes we would all appreciate you stopping your threats to rape people. Even though we all know you can’t get it up, much less force yourself on anyone.
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Re: Re:
Did you notice Google no longer caches websites?
No, because it still does. I mean, I just looked and they're still cached.
Ever wonder why?
Because you made up something that isn't actually true?
Of course it's theft.
Nah, dog. Courts have ruled caching legal. https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2008/10/search_engine_c.htm This is why Google still does it.
The content is the product of the hard work of its creator, whose right to control its distribution while protected by copyright is absolute.
Not according to the Supreme Court: https://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/499_US_340.htm
"Without a doubt, the “sweat of the brow” doctrine flouted basic copyright principles." and
Also, Section 107 of the copyright act makes it clear that the protection of copyright is anything but "absolute."
It's theft of the audience
This is... not a thing.
In short: you don't know the first thing about what you are discussing, and if you're not just trolling, you really ought to learn something before posting again. But, we know, you're just trolling. Thanks for the opportunity for me to help teach others just how wrong your arguments are. Next time, try harder.
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Re: Re: All or nothing
You just make shit up as you go, don't you?
Yeah, it's too bad that the guy writing movie-reviews in my local rag get's paid. Must be horrible for the rights-holder of the movies that he can make money off them...
Translation: "Wah! Wah! I want to be spoon-feed things I like!"
Piracy is not theft. But this is something you can't wrap your head around because it's so full of shit.
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Re: Re:
The internet archive would like to say hi and that you're wrong:
https://archive.org/web/
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The greater access to content that streaming gives people will increase demand across the board, across the world. Cable and broadcast were always too rigid and expensive and restrictive.
Just wait till all the content producers have their own streaming services and can deliver content direct to customers in exchange for a credit card number. That kind of radical efficiency is what's driving the explosion in content. Reduce overhead and more money is freed up for content production.
Plus investors smell blood in the water and are in a frenzy throwing money at streamings servcies. I dunno if you guys follow the markets but Disney is doing a dog and pony show on Apr 11, after which I expect their share price to rocket. More money to make more content, which attracts more subscribers and more investor money, etc.
And don't worry about an annoying explosion of streaming services. As long as subscribers go for just the biggest handful of services, and that's what they certainly seem to be doing, the number of eventual winners will be limited as the winners gobble up the losers. More industry consolidation to come. Right now, everyone is jostling for position in order to become one of those few winners or die trying.
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Re: You missed an important point here...
What it probably means is that yes, more content is being consumed but not necessarily for a higher price. The industry itself is making $$$ but fewer corporations are the ones benefitting and that number is going to fall further.
So the future is: lots of people consuming lots of content for cheap and the money funneling to a small number of content producers/distributors which make insane amounts of money while most of the entertainment industry crunches down to oblivion.
Not sure why this comments section is all about discussing piracy. Piracy is a side issue in this. Frankly I think piracy is a side issue in general. There's always been piracy, through the rise of Netflix, then Amazon, now Disney is going to join the streaming party, probably one or two others. Piracy isn't stopping them one whit. Who cares about piracy? Maybe some corporate lawyers and trade associations, that's about it.
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Re: All or nothing
Well sorry to break it to you, but the way streaming is going to work is, all the money will end up going to a small roster of global streaming behemoths, who both make and distribute their exclusive and non-overlapping libraries of content.
And brand names are going to be golden, which is why Disney is going to make out like a bandit when they launch Disney+. The content glut will make brands more valuable than ever because people just get confused by too many options. Show them a recognizable brand, and the confusion is instantly solved.
Piracy doesn't much matter. People will subscribe to Disney+ for the kids and for convenience. If it's a few bucks a month, who really cares?
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Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
"Piracy is not theft. But this is something you can't wrap your head around because it's so full of shit."
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Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
"Piracy is not theft. But this is something you can't wrap your head around because it's so full of shit."
You're as angry as you are cowardly and weak.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
Full reply below....
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Re: Re: You missed an important point here...
The copyright maximalists certainly use it as a reason to get things like article 13 passed; as a large step to gaining control over the Internet.
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Re: Re: Crybaby Jhon is having a real tantrum today
Ah yes, the "can't slander an alias" loophole.
Nothing has been "tried" yet, and when it is, he'll know. He's too much of a gnat to be a top priority.
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Re: Re: All or nothing
That assume that the Kids have not gone onto YouTube and other sites where they can participate in culture, rather than just being consumers.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
Juvenile writing? Swearing, slanted language, etc. Very clearly juvenile and not much respected in high-level journalism circles.
I'm not the one using bigoted slurs against people the way they are used by others against me and others.
As for Masnick's wealth, one could easily figure it out if the need arose, but he obviously does something for a living, maybe this, maybe something else. He's certainly not on par with top journalism outlets, and his writing style and what he tolerates in his comments section are symptoms of that.
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Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
"None of this means that piracy should ever be tolerated, though. That's just pure theft."
Again, tell that to artists who give their work away for free and encourage their fans to share/copy it. It's not theft if nothing was stolen.
If the artist does it, it's not piracy. No matter how profitable it might be for an artist to voluntarily give away work, that doesn't entitle anyone to steal it.
Article 13 shows your opinion is in the minority.
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Re: So jelly we could spread you on toast
Sad, pathetic, bitter, impotent, old man. It sure is fun watching you throw hissy fits.
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Re: Re: Re: Crybaby Jhon is having a real tantrum today
Cool story bro.
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Re: How impotent of you
For someone who dosent care about article 13 you sure do mention it a lot bro.
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Re: Jhon king of projection smythe
“You're as angry as you are cowardly and weak.”
Says the AC who was so mad it took him three tries to reply.
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Re:
"Do you mean “independent artists who make a name for themselves without relying on corporations to do it for them”? Because I would rather have them doing their thing, even if I dislike it, than be force-fed bland corporate slush because independent artists had to be sacrificed on the altar of copyright."
Couldn't agree more. A quick check of the 80 YouTube channels I'm subscribed to shows about 90% of them to be independent creators that wouldn't have been able to do their thing under legacy systems. Personally I find their content is considerably more entertaining and informative than broadcast dreck, which I rarely watch any more as a result.
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Re: Re: You missed an important point here...
Because the entire fucking point of this is that the record and movie industries have spent the past two decades claiming that piracy is destroying their business, and it clearly isn't.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
It's nice to see someone you loathe with the passion of a thousand dying suns take up such office space in your head you can't help but keep reading and posting on a site you say nobody reads or posts on because it couldn't possibly compare to "actual" journalism.
Guess those police investigations were nothing but pure bluff then since nobody reads this site?
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Re: Re: Re: Crybaby Jhon is having a real tantrum today
So who's top priority, then?
I won't be holding my breath for your answer.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
Yeah, such a minority that your pimpmasters had to bribe the government to move the election date and change the voting system midway without telling anyone.
You'd think if piracy was such a staggering minority you wouldn't need to stack the deck, but copyright fanboys have never been able to amount to anything more than scam artists, so why would they start behaving any different now?
Send out any love letters from Russia lately, Herrick?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
That's your full reply? No wonder you stopped writing self-help books. I wanted argument, not abuse!
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Expected John Herrick 419 Smith to throw a shit fit, was not disappointed. Didn't even have to ask where Poochie was!
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Do something or shut up, you limp-dicked excuse for a troll.
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Re: It’s Whine Time with Impotent Jhon
Do you even remember who you’re trying to threaten at this point? Or have you tossed so many empty threats at so many people you can’t keep track of your sad little revenge fantasies anymore?
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Spam
So is every other post in this thread from a single, failed, self-help author? One that can only make money from astroturfing?
Some call him John - I call him "Failed Self Help Scammer." FSHS.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
Technically it is. It's just sanctioned piracy. Which is a thing by the way.
But more than that, please tell me how it's different if the artist does it instead of someone else? The process involved is identical. Person A uploads content to website, person B downloads content. That doesn't change whether the artist does it or somebody else. So, please tell me how it's not the same.
Steal what? No theft has taken place. The artist is still in possession of their created work.
Really? Do tell how a minority of people passing a law solely because they were tricked and/or bribed into voting for it when it was wildly unpopular by the masses they represent counts as being the majority opinion. Please try. I'll wait.
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Re: Re: Re: Crybaby Jhon is having a real tantrum today
There are no aliases in question here.
And what exactly has all your ranting and raving been then?
Yeah, well my dad can beat up your dad. That's about the level of insult you've got going on there.
Yet here you are, every single day, frothing at the mouth. If he's such a low priority, why don't you go away?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
Ah yes, because swearing is so juvenile and isn't used in any professional speech anywhere. cough movies, politicians, news media, etc... cough
Where? You mean the part where he points to industry released numbers that show that profits are better than ever because of internet related purchases and says "See, the internet didn't destroy the entertainment industry, it helped it!"? Oh yes, very slanted. Damn that pesky truth and reality.
So you got nothing then.
Again, which circles would those be? The mainstream media ones where he is consistently held in high respect?
Umm, yeah, you are. Attacking his writing, his wealth, his associations, his intelligence, his supposed associations, his credibilty....I could go on and on.
All you do is make baseless, fact-less statements, then throw a tantrum and run away when we point to facts that prove you're wrong. Since you continue to do it after years of this, we are well within our rights to call you an idiot for your idiotic behavior. You have not proven yourself to be anything but.
The need has arisen. Please do tell me exactly how much he's worth and how much he makes every year. I'll wait.
I literally have no idea what you are trying to imply here. TD is his job, what he does for a living. Are you saying he is both writing and not-writing TD at the same time? Are we moving into some quasi-paradoxical discussion?
So? Most top journalism outlets don't cover what he covers. Besides, I don't think he's trying to be on par with them. So your insult falls flat on its face.
Uh, no, his writing style is his writing style. His comments section is a symptom of having completely anonymous submissions with little to no moderation. If there was, your ass would have been grass a long time ago.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
Wonderful comeback. slow clap
Now do you have any proof to back up what you say?
Thought not.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"This is dumb beyond belief."
Yes, but not because such things don't happen. What he means is that after spending so long ranting and raving against what he thinks is being said by people here, he still doesn't grasp the difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism.
"Look at all the artists on Youtube, Deviantart, soundcloud, Patreon, Amazon, etc..."
They don't count because reasons. Also, they don't use mailing lists to scam people like it's 1995, so our boy here doesn't recognise them as valid platforms.
"So switch to an online e-book model where there is zero cost to publish."
He didn't mention publishing costs. What he means is that it's harder to scam people by offering rich schemes when those schemes have been shared and exposed to people not on his magical mailing list.
"If those books worked, everyone in the world would be a millionaire"
Oh, they work at their intended purpose (making money for scam artists), just not their claimed purpose (making money for everybody else). Our boy here is just bitter because he had some luck before spam filters did their job properly and before his customer base moved away from email to social media, and he once saw one of his con tricks on a torrent site, so he can't believe it's him at fault.
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Re: Re: Give and Take
*"The automobile did not magically make any crimes go away, including robbery, and enabled many more, like carjacking.
Fixed that for you.
I'm afraid, Baghdad Bob, that we do not live in the 18th century any more.
"There is absolutely no justification for piracy, or for allowing the internet to exist in a way that makes copyright unenforceable."
You are wrong on both counts. Almost every progress made since the invention of fire has made many acts viewed as unlawful at the time unenforceable.
And justification certainly exists for most forms of unlawful behavior - because if what you claim is true then there is no "justification" today for women being able to vote, or, for that matter, the US opposing and repealing, by force, a silly tax on tea back in its colonial days.
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Re: Re:
"One person claiming to speak for a "we.""
There are at least an even dozen posters on this thread alone which heartily agree with him. So yes. "We".
Whereas you, otoh, have gotten caught sock puppeting so often that by now I'm half-convinced you believe the voices in your head alone serve to make you a majority.
Watching a man standing in a river and trying to push it back up by pissing against the stream is only funny for so long, Baghdad Bob.
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Re: Spam
Maybe he could get a self-help book that explains how to solve his problems...
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Re: Re:
"The internet has a lot of marketing "information" and MIS-information on it, but quality information has been run off by pirates who eliminated the incentive to produce it."
Ah, so THAT is why there are no consumer reviews available anywhere online anymore...Oh, wait, there are dozens, meaning you can EASILY get more marketing information, from a dozen sources, than you could before the internet where the one and only marketing "information" was the one hyped by the unscrupulous company peddling the flawed product.
"Content is NOT king, which is why artists have signed away their rights since long before the internet."
And have in good tradition signed themselves out at earliest opportunity. The media industry's slavery/indentured serf contract type is WELL known. The internet offered options, which is what really bugs all those labels unable to say "Our way or the highway. Now drop your pants, sugar" any longer.
"Any internet which allows someone to rip off 800+ books and sell them for an average of two cents each is an internet which is already broken."
Bullshit. Any communications structure which actually works to communicate with will similarly "allow" what you whine about.
Your argument, if applied logically, means that we similarly need to "fix" the road network which allows millions of people to speed every day.
""Breaking the internet" for the pirates means FIXING the internet for the producers, those who make what the pirates take."
No. Breaking the internet means breaking it for everyone. By the time the pirates get affected, no other business in the world will be able to operate.
The proportion of pirates in China was some 90% of their online citizenry in 2011...according to the industry. Do note that this is in a country where the draconian restrictions wouldn't fly in ANY nation with a free speech clause in their constitution.
You can't redesign the internet so pirates will be so much as hindered. Not and keep it functional. Your option is to pull the plug or watch piracy flourish as well as human nature will allow it to.
So, Baghdad Bob, The anachronistic camp of blowhards who believes the greatest revolution in communication since the invention of written language is an abomination and needs to be abolished? It's doomed to fail.
And whatever you say and however loudly you whine, no matter which desperately bough farcical laws end up staining the tablets, that simply will not change.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
"The internet functioned just fine before Google came along."
So did the abacus.
The reason Google won the search engine wars is simple. The internet works very much better than it did before.
I assume if you have a car it's a model T, because who the hell would need the new-fangled stuff when the trusty old Tin Lizzie worked so well, right?
Eventually and inevitably someone will come along and build a search engine so much better Google gets outcompeted the same way Yahoo and Lycos were. That doesn't change the fact that today the internet works a lot better than it used to because Google.
"People got the word out just fine, just not through a bot-driven engine."
Rewriting reality again, eh? They didn't.
Massive companies got the word out. No one else. Which is why you got five different search results from using five different search engines.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: You get nothing, good day sir
"This is why Masnick isn't taken seriously in journalism circles. His comments section is full of ad-hominems which are libelous and nonsensical, and full of anonymous verbal aggression the speaker would lack the nerve to ever use in public."
Completely unlike when you called for raping "aspies" én másse with, I noted, gohulish glee and anticipation.
So threatening to sexually assault people with disabilities is, in your book, quite OK, but when someone calls your bullshit it's "libelous ad hominem"?
Yeah, you know, Baghdad Bob, the reason people keep flagging your sad deluded rants around here isn't just because you consistently lie, spin, troll and run every bad rhetoric trick in the book...
....it's also because when you finally get miffed enough to drop your mask you end up sounding like something not quite human. Seek help, before your violent delusions end up slipping into real life.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: All or nothing
"I'm not the one using bigoted slurs against people the way they are used by others against me and others. "
Except where you threaten to rape people with ghoulish glee, you mean? And the part where you mentioned you wanted to do this to "aspies" wasn't dictionary-definition bigotry?
There's only one deranged lunatic around here who does that Baghdad bob...you.
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Re: Spam
"Some call him John - I call him "Failed Self Help Scammer." FSHS."
I call him Baghdad Bob. Much like his namesake he keeps standing in front of his own pulpit and pompously declaring victory for his glorious cause with bombs and shrapnel whistling around his ears.
Eventually his impassioned speeches will turn back the infidel dogs and restore Saddam's reign. You'll see.
/s
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Re: Re: Re:
The best part? Jhon Herrick Smith has already professed his own distaste for customer reviews. He calls them "character assassination enabled by Section 230".
Because if there's anything any business can't stand it's consumer feedback! Oh, wait, no. Only scam artists do that, but Herrick is too chickenshit to admit it.
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Re:
Here is what is happening..
We are changing formats..
From Broadcast
From Cable
From Sat...
To all the companies, owned by the Big corps, being able to do their OWN broadcasting on the net.
WE had...cable/sat.
Then we had Cable/sat/internet..
But it can all goto the internet...
The BIG change is Who gets paid?.
HOW do we pay..
Go out and pay companies for 1-5 channels in the set for $10?? Or pay EQUAL to what cable was charging?? PENNIES!!!..
Have to remember that the SAME corps are charging us for 4 different things.. Internet, Cable/sat, Cellphones, BASE PHONES..
If we could run 1 line to your home, we could pay 1 company 1 price...insted of $100 there, $100 there, $50 there, $35-50 Again.. Almost $300 we pay NOW...for all these services.
The Corps dont WANT to save money, because they can WRITE things off from all of these services, they Dont WANT 1 service that is CHEAP..
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Re: Re:
"Doesn't matter anyway: Article 13 passed, and piracy will be stopped one way or another, except for those who are simply determined to break the law."
So basically piracy won't be impacted worth shit because article 13 won't affect any "sites" pirates would actually use.
Article 13 will be a decisive axe to the neck for legal independent artists and platforms who will no longer be able to carry them profitably, but the only pirates who will be impacted are the few morons dumb enough to try to use open streaming platforms for their downloads and uploads.
Piracy already won the game and the one and only way you get to do jack shit about it will be when the plug is completely pulled on the internet.
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Re: Re: Re:
And adding to that comment; Even the copyright cult as a whole has realized that piracy is not going away, nor is it ever going to stop or be reduced.
Which is why every talking point of today's lobbyists only uses "piracy" as a weight to give credence to actual anti-competitive legislation meant to take out legal competition.
Article 13's one and only use is to throw a wrench on the independent DIY market model. Nothing else. It's a blatant attempt to reduce competition over eyeball time and brand awareness.
It gives not a single fuck about "piracy" because that's not its intended use nor does it have any mechanism which aims at piracy either directly or indirectly.
And that leaves you, a single voice in the desert, braying about "pirates" while every one of your allies except the odd persistent copyright troll have quit the field.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Let's say someone gave you a method for tripling your money in two years buying real estate, and proved themselves by making fifteen picks and thirteen of them did just that. How much would that book be worth?"
Literally nothing, once enough brokers had learned that method to drop the success rate to where out of fifteen picks, thirteen were losses. The stock market, you see, is still basically a game of wagers which consists of winners and losers.
A book like that, once published, assuming the methods works to begin with, would last just as long as it takes for the major brokers to build a counter to those methods into the algorithms controlling the massive scale purchase-and-sell shell game which makes up most of the market transactions these days.
If you believe your theory actually has relevance you need to go back to school and study something called "game theory".
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Because if there's anything any business can't stand it's consumer feedback! Oh, wait, no. Only scam artists do that, but Herrick is too chickenshit to admit it."
Well, if his "scams" are at the same level as the writing we usually see old Baghdad Bob farting out so persistently then it would take a kindergarten kid to fall for them.
I can somehow see him as that creepy man waving lollipops at children. Assuming they're...what was his term..."Aspies"...
He has stated his preference on multiple occasions after all.
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Re: Re: It’s Whine Time with Impotent Jhon
"Or have you tossed so many empty threats at so many people you can’t keep track of your sad little revenge fantasies anymore?"
Worse. He's forgotten which sock puppet he used to post which rant. A few years back he could still reference his OP in his replies. Today all he does is toss a crippled one-liner and go.
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Re:
Ha -- and just a week later comes the news that Capcom is reissuing AvP.
...on a 230-euro plug-and-play console.
Well, hopefully at least this means it'll show up on other hardware, too.
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The Last Word
“If even one artist — just one! — follows one (or both) of those two philosophies and still makes a profit, your absolutist statement becomes meaningless.
(I would recommend preparing to eat some crow, by the by — I’m sure other commenters will have examples to point out.)
The funny thing is, plenty of high-profile movies, books, games, etc. get pirated all the time — and yet the corporations that own those copyrights still make a profit. (Or do you think Avengers: Infinity War wasn’t pirated because it was profitable?)
So what?
So what?
…and we have become exceedingly efficient at countering your rantings each time one is posted. You should maybe pick up a new hobby. (I suggest craft brewing.)
made the Last Word by Gary