No, the help file for your browser will. It will tell you that if the name can't be resolved and you keep getting that error then you can type in the IP address itself and get to where you want to go. A perfectly legitimate use and nothing to do with piracy. Unless, suddenly, every browser is pro-pirate.
PS: And as AT&T well knows 99% of all data and voice switching is done externally and internally by light NOT copper or relays or any of that junk in the central offices.
In some respects I'm not at all surprised by this revelation. Network designers in telcos and cablecos have known this for years at both analog and digital levels of transmission. It's why the networks are designed the way they are.
It's designed to withstand short bursts of increased (i.e. hogging) traffic and survive it quite nicely, thanks. It's also designed to be unnoticeable to the customer. (Poorly designed or rural and suburban cable subscribers can and do still notice that bandwidth decreases between 4 and 8pm when people come home and flip in the TV and computer. The bandwidth goes back to normal after 8pm. A great deal of that is the "shared" aspect of coaxial cabling vs twisted pair.)
It's largely been a false argument from the start. Where there is fibre to the house it's a completely false argument as, theoretically, the bandwidth/bitstream in fibre is infinite. And before any screaming starts that there is still copper out there, I know that. The closer your bit of copper is to a cross connect that itself is fed by fibre the less the copper restricts bandwidth/bitstream transmission. (though if you wire your house with cat 3 [cheap] tel wire you deserve what you get.)
It's a money grab, pure and simple. There's little or no technical validity to it at all.
PS: And as AT&T well knows 99% of all data and voice switching is not done externally and internally by light not copper or relays or any of that junk in the central offices.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
Oh hell, Do you think the rest of the planet will fall in line with SOPA should it pass? I don't think so. Not for as much as a second, I don't think so.
And let's assume, for sake of argument alone, that DNS servers can determine which are and are not rogue sites automatically and not block legitimate ones (almost impossible) and has no extra costs to pass on to ISP subscribers in the United States, the reality is that TPB will still be listed on DNS servers located outside of US territory and possessions.
So much for that idea. TPB will continue on as it has as will other sites. By sheer numbers alone. And by sheer numbers alone that is where most infringement takes place.
So the United States isn't TPB's major market. The rest of the planet is. (Mostly due to the perception, valid or not, that American closed source software is far too expensive as are US entertainment products like songs and movies.)
Any attempt will to enforce SOPA on the rest of the world will be, rightly, considered as (yet another) attempt by the United States to apply this law extra territorially. And, rightly, loudly objected to as the United States would rightly object to Kenya attempting to enforce its law in the United States.
That is the danger when fracturing of the Internet is talked about. The United States could have one "Internet", whatever countries agree to sign on in whole or in part to SOPA will have another and then those who have resisted the temptation will have what we have now.
Even if these Internets can speak to each other (for now) there's still a fracturing taking place. Eventually they'll stop being able to talk to one another and all the creativity, business, culture and trade that the Internet has enabled will start to end.
Leaving out the host of other problems with SOPA/IP Protect that alone is very serious. Mix the other problems back in again they're toxic.
In the end the United States pays. Costs are increased, The entire reason for it -- stopping infringement fails as it will not only because of what's outlined above and not only that but the simple fact that humans really don't like being TOLD what to do particularly when it all amounts to welfare for two rapidly failing industries.
The worst case scenario is that the USA has it's own internet that can't talk to others lest it be polluted by the still alive and very healthy TPB. Compliant countries such as Canada and Mexico will have their own Internets but somewhat more open. Canadians will nod our heads, go sure, then set up private DNS systems that route around what offends us and Mexicans will do what they do best and ignore it and the rest of the world will have theirs.
All of that is why the tech industry is screaming blue murder. (Ok, in Microsoft's case whispering it but entities like Microsoft and Adobe are the few tech companies that can outspend the entertainment industry when it comes to "purchasing" politicians.)
Put simply, and on every level, these bills will be toxic should they pass. But toxic to the United States not to TPB who will handily survive.
What cheering you do hear for these bills is coming from places like India and Brazil, and to some extent, China, who are just loving this.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
You make a valid point concerning DNS but as SOPA seeks to control DNS in the USA, then then they also seek to control those automated entries that appear during the constant updating of routes, name-IP relationships and so on on DNS servers in the Untied States.
The easiest to control is the DNS server you use through your ISP and as most people don't change that or know how to that would effectively do what they want.
On the other hand it becomes a game of whack-a-mole where the infringing site simply changes it's name and IP and there they are, back again!
But this constant whack a mole may cause DNS server owners in the United States. mostly telcos, cabecos and universities to drop out of the automated updates to give them a chance to manually review them so they can protect themselves from the penalties outlined in SOPA.
The rest of the planet won't be doing this which means that in short order you have, effectively, two Internets. Not completely fractured but from outside the US sites will be available, both legit and shady, that aren't in the US because of the perceived or real need for a manual review of updates. ou can write a script to eliminate most of the eyeball work but you can't eliminate it all.
Either way it won't stop infringement.
As for YouTube part of the terms of use is that you'll only use copyrighted work within a "fair use", "fair dealing" concept. Your idea could end up with people reporting what doesn't need reporting and not reporting what is due to confusion as most lay persons don't know the difference between fair use and infringement. A lot of lawyers can't give you a hard and fast rule either because the difference is largely contextual.
The "safe harbour" rule is one of the few good things about the DCMA from a consumer/artist point of view and the reporting structure sounds more stazi-like than anything really that will stop or reduce infringement.
You're right that there are plenty of other things to be alarmed about in SOPA than these but they're important too.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Switzerland was a "safe haven" for Nazi gold, too.
The US Congress, at least this time around isn't attempting a direct extraterrirorial application of American laws. All SOPA wants to do is break the DNS system and deny funding to infringing sites in reaction to a private demand with no due process within the United States.
I suspect the American courts will deal with that bit of silliness in due course.
The only major flaw, well fatal really, is that the recording industry did not offer a service similar to Napster when it got going so there was no service to sell in respect of people wanting singles from CD's rather than 11 or 12 bad songs -- they wanted the good one. (Another failure in customer service.) So people shared, even at dead slow dialup speeds.
And a recording isn't a service it's a product. Folks like lawyers, dentist, veteranarians and doctors provide a service. The recording industry sells a product.
A product, such as the CDs has no intrinsic or real value if no one wants it. Such as the crappy CDs of the day that brought about Napster and it's copycats.
Now as to willing to pay, generally after "trying it out" people are. But you don't seem to believe that so there's no point in kicking you in the general direction of studies that say that cause you're mind is about as open as a rusty steel trap.
But. please, please learn the difference between a service and a product. That kind of simple confusion is only going to convince me you're blue.
Which begs the question of why you didn't bother to log in or is it that DH said something about weird sex to you again?
Re: Mike wants out-of-control piracy, upset by contrary claims.
Except you think that infringement is wildly out of control every time big media says it is, like when they buy politicians.
If the RIAA repeats this, you'll fall in line as you always do and claim it's all under control.
Yes, one could say the RIAA has increased awareness of copyright and that it's valid (for now) for three generations (a generation is measured as 20 years) where the creator and his/her children and other heirs get to sit back and wallow in all that money the publisher never paid them because the budget to promote, distribute and print the book suddenly ended up costing more than the NASA manned mission to Mars will while doing nothing to prove whether or not zero gravity sex is or isn't fun.
And it's not Mike's problem, or mine, to solve the RIAA's problems for them. That part is real simple. In a free market it's adapt or die. Kinda like evolution, right? Not a thing to do with copyright or that imaginary $100 million movie you want to make. It's not your problem either. But as you want to make it yours fill your boots.
Out of one side of their mouths the RIAA claims that file sharing is killing them, killing their industry and turning artists into paupers (as if they give a tinker's damn about artists) and out of the other side they're now claiming that it's all under control, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the grass is growing (the grass they're smoking anyway). everyone is dancing in the pile of money they're making and the world is just a wonderful place.
Why then SOPA and IP Protect and what's the point in them if the RIAA has solved the problem?
Re: PIRATES HAVE BROKEN THE INTERNET. They broke the TRUST.
The accusation that because people here are opposed to SOPA, for a large number of reasons, they are automatically pro-pirate or, illogically, pirates ourselves is getting a little old. Not only old, but inaccurate.
"That's flatly criminal according to common law." The Common Law and Civil Law are not Criminal Law. Never have been, never will be. Both are disputes between citizens. Criminal Law is a dispute between the sovereign vs an individual. (In the US it's referred to as The State vs Joe Blow. In a constitutional monarchy like Canada it's Regina vs Joe Blow.) The concepts are entirely different. Which is why there's a different test to determine guilt. In criminal law it's the well known "beyond a reasonable doubt" which is a very high bar to set.
In civil and the common law the test it known as "balance of probabilities" Let me put it this way, say, Joe Blow, my neighbour after I've asked him repeatedly and very nicely (I am Canadian, after all and we have a series of "nice" genes unless we're playing hockey or fighting a war when we suddenly seem to turn them all off.) One day the dog drags himself home with a fractured skull and Joe Blow sues me for damaging his valuable property, a purebred mutt. I turn around and sue him for damages for the loss of face and my annual best flower garden awards every year since he got the thing because he lets his dog dedicate, urinate and dig in my garden despite repeated requests not to. Neighbour A sees Joe's dog go into the garden, hears the beast yelp in pain and half running half dragging itself back to Joe's yard. A short time later he sees me come out of my back yard wearing my steel toed boots. Neighbour B says she saw me go into the back yard shortly before the dog yelped and came out wearing my steel toed boots. Neither one has seen anything else.
My defense in court is that the dog was butted by a deer protecting its fawn. Neither deer nor fawn was seen. Even though we have trouble with deer getting into yards from the bush behind us all. The vet has been unable to determine what struck the dog. We're both found liable (guilty) and I have to pay for the dog's vet bill and ongoing treatment and he has to pay for my plants that the dog dug up even if most of my neighbours don't recall seeing the dog there all that often. So how did this happen? It couldn't in a criminal case because there is no evidence to move the case from "yeah, I probably did it" to "Yah, I probably did it but we can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt". And yeah we can't prove Joe's dog damaged my award winning flower bed even if that can't be proved beyond a reasonable doubt" but we are sure that's probably true too. The decisions were made on that, on balance of probability I injured Joe's dog and Joe allowed his dog to muck with my flower bed. So we both get an award and neither of us is any happier than we were before the whole thing began.
Though the whole thing is long forgotten now, Joe and I often share a beer on a hot summer afternoon, his dog figures he owns my garden now and guards it from everyone and everything except my cat.
The moral, blue, is be careful what you (and SOPA) wish for. The bar to jump over is much, much higher that it is in the common law or civil law. Right now you can accuse sites of being pirate sites and only have to prove "balance of probabilities". A much, much lower bar that criminal law's "beyond a reasonable doubt" as criminal law and civil and common law are built to do different things. And one involves the full power of the state.
As far as copyright goes, it's not a "Society has long codified..." thing. It's actually a recent innovation first appearing in 1709. 302 years is not "long codified into law" and certainly it did NOT appear because creating a story is hard to do. Read it. They don't mention "copying is always easier than creating from scratch" or words to that effect in the preamble to the statue or anywhere in the law and regulations pursuant to it. Anyway, copying is plagiarism not piracy.
Humans have been writing stories for the 6000 some odd years since writing was developed in the ancient world. So 302 years is not, by any stretch of the imagination, long. We are also a creative, story-telling and curious and inventing species and have been as long as humans have been on the earth, say 100,000 or so years. All without copyright.
Telling stories helps us make sense of the world around us. It entertains and educates us. It opens new possibilities and new worlds to us. With or without copyright we'll keep telling stories. Story-tellers won't stop telling or writing stories just because copyright vanishes. Inventors won't stop inventing should patents disappear. We have an incurable urge to find a better way to do something and we'll scratch that itch till we do. Always have, always will.
Bear in mind that should the worst happens and copyright vanishes you and other IP maximalists can take a good long look into the mirror and while you cry in your shaving creme and remember that you, NOT piracy killed it because the broad citizenship and society finally got fed up with ever restrictive and eternal copyright for the benefit of the few (certainly not the majority of authors or artists) and should it take patents with it you can thank yourself for that too because the rest of us got tired of you crying wolf.
We'll see what the United States gets from this. Election year and all that, you see. I'm not saying COPA won't pass or some version of it won't get through the House and Senate and be signed into law. But I wonder about the debate leading up to it and not just here.
As you're willing to break the Internet to do it. Are you equally willing to live through an extended recession and recovery to do it? I guess you must be.
Pirates, in the meantime, have broken nothing. Not trust not anything. If anyone has broken trust it's the RIAA, MPAA, the publishers associations and the politicians they've bought.
And out_of_the_blue.
Ta ta.
I do hope one day you learn a little about law, economics and the internet. Right now you have the understanding of a Grade 4 student. Make that Grade 3.
Re: Yes, Mike, the Internet enables symbiotic infringement.
But whoever pays the freight and who collects money off infringing material is still logically at fault. -- And by the way, you keep relying on statute, where in common law and common sense, just because a crime is split up into parts doesn't make it legal."
Infringment is NOT repeat NOT a crime. It's a civil offense. Get that firmly hammered into your brain.
Notification of the alleged infringement (note not proven and still not proven) is exactly what was missing here. And it cost the infringing site money they paid to the ad agency not the other way around. (All of $17 a month but still you have the flow of money going upstream instead of downstream.)
So SOPA is not needed to simplify anything. A simple email would have done it followed, if necessary for whatever passes as a registered letter these days, must how it's ALWAYS been done.
And just what multiple co-operating thieves are you talking about? Oh, you mean infringers not thieves because infringing isn't a crime it's a civil offense.
Still, no new law is needed. Will ya read the article again and the analysis. The original ex parte award was overturned precisely because the plaintiff never DID bother no notify the defendant before hauling it off to court.
Now again, who are these multiple, co-operating "thieves" you speak of. Evidence and some semblance of proof, please. And please don't point at Google Ads, search engines and such things. All it shows it you haven't a clue what you're talking about.
Re: Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Dec 6th, 2011 @ 6:08am
I'll just add a couple of objections to your demonstration of rampant ignorance.
If it's casual "infringers" you may have a point about DNS, but only maybe.
Minor things like always on B to B systems depends on accurate DNS to even function well or at all as well as cryptography and VPN. You wanna break that, too, do you?
Every voice call you make on a cell or on landline is routed through the internet until the person at the other end answers. So that needs accurate DNS, too. Unless, of course you want to stop that. If you do then be prepared to pay a lot more to telcos and cablecos for all the copper and fibre they'll need to install to get around the broken DNS system. In fact the switch you get your dial tone from runs it's internal network on TCP/IP protocol, the same one the Internet uses. Still wanna break DNS?
(I know this after 35 years of installing, repairing and designing business voice and data, backbone voice and data systems, not to mention video and satellite so I do know something of what I speak. Not to mention installing switches and ensuring they work with the myriad of equipment around them on the digital and, sometimes, bit level.)
The DNS system is NOT repeat NOT the soft middle. Anything but. It's critical to the function of the Internet. If you believe anything else you are a moron in an incredible hurry.
I've said this before but it bears repeating it's IP maximalists like you who don't even get the PURPOSE of copyright and patents who are gonna be the death of them not infringers. There is still some widespread support for both concepts out there but it's declining fast. And you and the RIAA, MPAA and things like SOPA and IP PROTECT that are the root cause of that decline not piracy.
And no one, I hope, is fool enough to want to ban or restrict cryptography and VPN just to protect the entertainment industry from damages it can't even PROVE. An industry that contributes 0.1% of GDP to the United States. But you're willing to take down the rest of the economy to do that. And believe me that's what a ban on cyrptography and VPN would do. Aren't things bad enough the way we are after the bankers have had a go at the world? I guess not.
And even you admit that it won't go one bit towards stopping piracy/infringment. It'll make what's largely casual not into something where a massive profit can be made and once you drive it underground by passing a pointless, unenforcable law against cryptography and VPN that'll bring in the same "I gotta bigger gun than you do" crowd that run the drug trade for all the good prohibition on certain drugs has done.
Before talking about just who is causing the decline in respect for IP laws take a good look in the mirror.
Re: Legalistic Mike is for EVERY possible delay and dodge.
No one is denying here that the ad server company KNEW or even should have known that infringement had taken or was taking place on their client's site. Party A (the ad server) cannot be held responsible for the behaviour of Party B ( the web site) in any event but even more-so when they didn't know.
The publisher never bothered to send them a cease and desist letter or request before traipsing off to court. Nor to we know that the ad server would have resisted that request. If it were me I'd look into it, if I got the same impression the publisher had I'd have disconnected them. I'm not going to war over a $17/month account.
Morally (your word) the publisher had an obligation to send that notice. Due process demands that they were obligated to send that notice. Due process and morality both demand that both parties attempt a settlement before heading off to waste valuable court time. It never happened in this case. If I didn't know better I'd be beginning to wonder if you weren't the publisher's lawyer.
This has nothing to do with piracy. It has everything to do with law, due process and moral behaviour on both sides. The publisher failed on all counts.
If that's pro-piracy, I can live with that. If that makes me pro-piracy I can live with that too. I'd rather live under the rule of law than your twisted version of that that just might be and your view of the issue and the world in pure black and white, also known as binary thinking.
Me, I vote for the rule of law as it has evolved over the past thousand years. It does things better than you or I could and far better than COPA/IP PROTECT will. You'd rather pull out the sword and scream "set loose the dogs of war!" at the slightest suggestion that something might be, could be, possibly be, I had a dream about it be.
It's stances like yours that damage the entire concept of intellectual property than all the pirates in the world could ever accomplish. And that is NOT moral or ethical either.
ex parte ruilings have a nasty history of getting overturned in whole or in part when the party absent arrives at a later date so the court can hear their arguments.
Your statment indicates that you feel that the plaintiff is right in every detail when they allege infringment. In this case they were wrong, The ad server was an "innocent bystander" in this. The plantiff hasn't followed due process by issuing a "cease and desist" letter or any other form of warning or notice that the ad server stop serving ads to the site. They just assumed they must have known and went ahead. Right there the plaintiff didn't follow due process. You're supposed to try to settle before taking up court time.
I don't think the ad server would have fought all that hard to protect $17 a month. They may have responded to the publisher saying they didn't know but were taking down their ads, thanking them for the heads up and that would have been the end of it.
Instead the publisher went directly to court, in the absence of the ad server and got the ruling they wanted. When the ad server showed up the ruling was, for all practical purposes, overturned.
Incidentally, as I understand that India is a signatory to the Berne Copyright Convention, they could have taken the case to Delhi as well without extraterritorial imposition of US laws and court rulings. Might as well cover all the bases, also known as due process.
Back to the case in question. The plaintiff doesn't appear to have had an actionable case to begin with. At least as far as the ad server's enabling infringement is concerned.
One of the reasons ex parte rulings and injunctions are so frequently overturned is that the plaintiff has rushed off to court with an incomplete case, told only their side of the story and when the defendant appears either after appeal or of the scheduled full ruling date to present their side the holes in the case appear. To that end rush to ex parte often ends up wasting valuable court time to only determine the plaintiff had no case to start with because they don't have the necessary evidence for action (mere suspicion is this case aka "but they HAD to know!) to begin with, hadn't followed the rules and hadn't tried to settle before appearing in court.
As for printers of textbooks, they've been pricing in "piracy" for years. They've long known that, in some subjects, students will line up in front of photocopiers to copy entire books, that those finished the course that requires the book often sell them to those entering the course (loss of sale though not traditionally thought of as infringement as no copying has taken place) or in the case of very expensive textbooks simple theft (as in the physical act of stealing the book).
In civil cases both defendant and plaintiff have incentive to appear on the scheduled date. If one doesn't appear they lose -- pure and simple. Unless there is a very good reason they weren't there, and I mean more than a case of the sniffles, only a wildly out of line ruling can be appealed, at least in most provinces in Canada. So your argument that the defendant can delay a hearing simply by not showing up is false. And. in this case, there were no damages to relieve once both parties were allowed to appear so it was the defendant, not the plaintiff who suffered.
Also, courts have precious little patience with parties to a case who try to delay things by simply not appearing. No patience at all.
I guess you're going to have to boycott all Microsoft products from here on in because they were one of the biggies that basically told the Business Software Association to back off on it's too too enthusiastic support for SOPA and ProtectIP. I suspect other biggies such as Adobe were trying to get them to do the same thing. I guess you'll have to boycott open source software as they're opposed right across the spectrum. You're going to be looking scratching hard to find a tech company closed or open source that unreservedly supports these bills. No the bill doesn't affect their AV business. That's not the only line of business they're in. They've also worked and continue to work with the Apache Foundation on software that works with the Apache Web Server and it WILL affect that part of their business. Oh heck, why bother. I ought to dash off a macro for this but here goes: SOPA in not about the artists, never has been. It's about supporting a failing industry that will say anything, lie about anything in order to get protectionist welfare from the United States in order not to adapt to a changed marketplace. I know that legislators can be bought off. That seems to have happened. What's your excuse?
The drop into binary thinking and options is almost always the last resort of someone who hasn't thought things through or to hide blatant hypocrisy or both.
You've qualified more times than enough on both counts.
As for Kazpersky they sell software supporting the Apache server, sell software that supports Linux and Mac firewalls and a host of other products. Some under GPL, some closed source. All of which proves.....nothing.
Kaspersky also has open source code out there to deal with DNS failures such as finding existing sites a DNS server can't locate which needs only minor updating to get around SOPAs blocking provisions.
The code, incidentally deals with a perfectly legitimate and legal response to an invalid response from a broken DNS server before you go off on a tangent about that being somehow evil and supporting pirates and stuff like that further illustrating your ignorance of the architecture of the Internet.
As has been noted already, contrary to your and the entertainment industry's claims that piracy leads to a drop in sales empirical evidence shows the opposite in studies that can be verified as being statistically valid and then duplicated. Too bad the entertainment industry's studies can't do the same no matter how often they and you have been asked to bring one forward.
People, of course, are responsible for being idiots if that's what they want to be and go to sites that are dangerous. They can do that quite well on their own accord with out any help from Kaspersky's software or any other malware program.
Your insistence that everyone opposed to SOPA/IP Protect must, somehow be pro-pirate is disingenuous as is your support for an industry you otherwise claim to oppose and its influence in Congress. Why? Because it's anti-pirate.
It's no such thing, of course, but it makes nice cover for legislation that is, in reality a protectionist welfare program for them. In the meantime it wants to force payment processors into denying sites money on the private, unassailable, unquestionable complaint of someone in an industry that has a track record of forever getting it wrong. and over reacting on the odd occasion they get it, sorta, kinda right. Denying the accused of due process along the way which is just another way of indulging in unreasonable search and seizure. That last bit simply isn't allowed. Read your own country's constitution.
You're supporting a law based on unproven evidence supporting a mythic loss of income by an industry that is still profitable but is finding it hard to compete in a vastly changed mileau that they have no intention of adapting to. They once owned the distribution channels and controlled them and they want it back even if they have to lie to get it back, bring down copyright law in order to do it because the governed (aka the citizenry) withdraw their support for it because it no longer serves the intent it was supposed to support both inside and outside of the United States, attempts apply laws which amount to unreasonable search and seizure and apply American laws extra territorially in violation of every trade agreement the USA has ever signed and in a fashion that should, say France try it on the United States there would be Senators, Congressmen and others foaming at the mouth for war. (0verstatement. Not by a lot by overstatement.)
SOPA isn't about customers, it's not about people going to dangerous sites to grab warez or that sort of thing, it's not about the artists and never has been, it's about the entertainment industry desperately trying to get control over something they will ultimately fail to gain control over...how products, ideas, music, inventions, software and progress will be spread and distributed in the future. That's why the tech industry opposes it, it's why Microsoft pushed the BSA to scale back its support and why Kazpersky broke with BSA on the issue publicly. Its why the entire open source movement is opposed to it. (Of course I'm sure you think they're all pirates, after all they just HAVE to be using the same illogic used by SCO). It's why musicians, writers, artists and others are opposed to it. Including myself.
All in all then, I guess, in your binary world view I just have to be pro-pirate.
I use open source software which I download or torrent for nothing from the distibutor's site (or worse yet that den of piracy called SourceForge), what I write is protected by copyright though I license it using a Creative Commons license that doesn't demand payment, simply attribution and I believe studies that say that, by and large, folks you call pirates are, in fact, consumers at the end of the day.
If that's what I am, then, "aye matey, I am and damned proud of it, I am."
Except that I have never knowingly infringed on anyone's copyright or patent in my life. I cite my sources when I quote from them, I use content as the artist wishes me to do from their own mouth and I could go on. I've never violated a patent that I'm aware of. (Though software patents are about as silly as plans anyone might have for human settlement on Venus.)
For all that I'm a pirate in your eyes and so be it. All because I oppose legislation like SOPA in the United States or similar legislation in my own country. I refuse to lose my freedoms and liberties for the good of an industry whose height of innovation seems to be "American Chopper Senior vs Junior". I could go on. I refuse to support censorship in any form particularly when it's imposed by government in support of private industry not just in the personage of the RIAA, MPAA or some publishers group. We had that not too long ago in Canada meant to support a relic from the mercantile era called the Hudson's Bay Company. I don't want to see it again. And I sure as hell oppose corporate welfare in any form for any reason but most of all one that can't open it's corporate mouth without lying about the reasons it needs it.
I'm told I don't suffer fools gladly, blue. That being the case I've suffered you for far too long. You're ignorant, a hypocrite and you just won't learn.
For all the whining and complaining about the Internet and the "wild west" part of it, the "democractizaion of music" and a host of other things, most of which IP purists seem to loathe just on principle the current time reminds me of another time.
From the early 1950s to the mid 1970s there weren't just four or five monster labels out there controlling 100% of the distribution but hundreds of smaller ones each with their own distrubtion channels. You know Sun Records, for example. A&R meant meeting the artists not listening to a tape but listening to them play/sing or whatever and seeing the audience reaction.
During the 1950s it was these small labels that signed Elvis (Sun), most white rock'n'roll acts and virtually all black crossover acts. later grabbed up by the majors when they started to sell not to record as such but to distribute because they wanted control of that, more profitable part of the business.
British Invasion in 1963-64 was much the same. Other than the Beatles few English acts had American deals so small labels grabbed what they could and, when they started to sell the majors moved in and signed them from the small companies. Again, for the more profitable distribution end of the business.
There's nothing inherently evil in all of this, mind you. It's business in action, the RIAA hadn't turned into the single minded behemoth it's become now. There was still, actually competition in the business and the music flourished.
The serious merger and acquisition stuff started in the mid 1970s and has continued till now with the "majors" having reduced themselves to a small group.
New music is introduced by indie labels and, once again, acts are signed on to major labels for the distribution rights for the same reasons.
Now the internet has arrived and the distribution channel is fractured beyond belief. Anyone, with minimal knowledge can upload a file or 6 and start to distribute songs. The old rules don't exist any more because the game gets played so differently. Anyway, the RIAA and MPAA are still smarting from the deals they feel cornered into signing with Apple to start up iTunes and they lost the distribution channel there too. Worse, they had to sign the same deal with Amazon.
Worse yet indies are popping up everywhere and the RIAA and MPAA can't do anything about it. "Legally" or not it all ends up on the Internet. Their members or not, it all ends up on the Internet.
So now, feeling incredibly entitled, they feel the need to buy up as many members of the US Congress as they can and whine that their failure to keep up with the planet is somehow due to copyright infringement instead of strikingly bad business decisions.
Sadly there are otherwise intelligent people who seem to agree with them who might not have been paid off.
Then I remember that it's the RIAA as it existed and it's members who got blasted over the payola scandal in the late 1950s and come to the delighted conclusion that nothing has changed with them and if all else fails they always fall back on blatant corruption.
It's nice to know there are some constants in an otherwise changing world.
He's reviewing a recording, he didn't like it for a host of reasons.
Let me put it another way. Metallica and Lou Reed decide to do something they call Lulu. The call up Bob Rock at his West Vancouver home and say "we got a job for ya and we'll send you the money via Paypal immediately if you say yes".
Faster than light speed Bob Rock is pulling up outside Lou Reed's studio in New York and off they go. Even if it's a dud it looks good on Rock's c/v that he's worked with Lou Reed as he can produce (and perform) bad metal in his sleep so Metallica is no big deal. Anyway, who cares? He's paid, got the job with Lou Reed and he's happy and they got thier record out. Done Deal.
On the post: Belgian Anti-Piracy Group Threatens To Take ISPs To Court If They Don't Block The Pirate Bay; Pirate Bay Traffic From Belgium Increases
Re:
But I must be cause I just explained it again.
On the post: New Report Debunks The 'Bandwidth Hog' Myth
Re:
PS: And as AT&T well knows 99% of all data and voice switching is done externally and internally by light NOT copper or relays or any of that junk in the central offices.
On the post: New Report Debunks The 'Bandwidth Hog' Myth
It's designed to withstand short bursts of increased (i.e. hogging) traffic and survive it quite nicely, thanks. It's also designed to be unnoticeable to the customer. (Poorly designed or rural and suburban cable subscribers can and do still notice that bandwidth decreases between 4 and 8pm when people come home and flip in the TV and computer. The bandwidth goes back to normal after 8pm. A great deal of that is the "shared" aspect of coaxial cabling vs twisted pair.)
It's largely been a false argument from the start. Where there is fibre to the house it's a completely false argument as, theoretically, the bandwidth/bitstream in fibre is infinite. And before any screaming starts that there is still copper out there, I know that. The closer your bit of copper is to a cross connect that itself is fed by fibre the less the copper restricts bandwidth/bitstream transmission. (though if you wire your house with cat 3 [cheap] tel wire you deserve what you get.)
It's a money grab, pure and simple. There's little or no technical validity to it at all.
PS: And as AT&T well knows 99% of all data and voice switching is not done externally and internally by light not copper or relays or any of that junk in the central offices.
On the post: Getting It: In A World Of Digital Abundance, Sell The Scarcities
Re: Re: Re: Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
And let's assume, for sake of argument alone, that DNS servers can determine which are and are not rogue sites automatically and not block legitimate ones (almost impossible) and has no extra costs to pass on to ISP subscribers in the United States, the reality is that TPB will still be listed on DNS servers located outside of US territory and possessions.
So much for that idea. TPB will continue on as it has as will other sites. By sheer numbers alone. And by sheer numbers alone that is where most infringement takes place.
So the United States isn't TPB's major market. The rest of the planet is. (Mostly due to the perception, valid or not, that American closed source software is far too expensive as are US entertainment products like songs and movies.)
Any attempt will to enforce SOPA on the rest of the world will be, rightly, considered as (yet another) attempt by the United States to apply this law extra territorially. And, rightly, loudly objected to as the United States would rightly object to Kenya attempting to enforce its law in the United States.
That is the danger when fracturing of the Internet is talked about. The United States could have one "Internet", whatever countries agree to sign on in whole or in part to SOPA will have another and then those who have resisted the temptation will have what we have now.
Even if these Internets can speak to each other (for now) there's still a fracturing taking place. Eventually they'll stop being able to talk to one another and all the creativity, business, culture and trade that the Internet has enabled will start to end.
Leaving out the host of other problems with SOPA/IP Protect that alone is very serious. Mix the other problems back in again they're toxic.
In the end the United States pays. Costs are increased, The entire reason for it -- stopping infringement fails as it will not only because of what's outlined above and not only that but the simple fact that humans really don't like being TOLD what to do particularly when it all amounts to welfare for two rapidly failing industries.
The worst case scenario is that the USA has it's own internet that can't talk to others lest it be polluted by the still alive and very healthy TPB. Compliant countries such as Canada and Mexico will have their own Internets but somewhat more open. Canadians will nod our heads, go sure, then set up private DNS systems that route around what offends us and Mexicans will do what they do best and ignore it and the rest of the world will have theirs.
All of that is why the tech industry is screaming blue murder. (Ok, in Microsoft's case whispering it but entities like Microsoft and Adobe are the few tech companies that can outspend the entertainment industry when it comes to "purchasing" politicians.)
Put simply, and on every level, these bills will be toxic should they pass. But toxic to the United States not to TPB who will handily survive.
What cheering you do hear for these bills is coming from places like India and Brazil, and to some extent, China, who are just loving this.
On the post: Getting It: In A World Of Digital Abundance, Sell The Scarcities
Re: Re: Re: Re: Tell me again, why are we let a dying industry ruin the internet?
The easiest to control is the DNS server you use through your ISP and as most people don't change that or know how to that would effectively do what they want.
On the other hand it becomes a game of whack-a-mole where the infringing site simply changes it's name and IP and there they are, back again!
But this constant whack a mole may cause DNS server owners in the United States. mostly telcos, cabecos and universities to drop out of the automated updates to give them a chance to manually review them so they can protect themselves from the penalties outlined in SOPA.
The rest of the planet won't be doing this which means that in short order you have, effectively, two Internets. Not completely fractured but from outside the US sites will be available, both legit and shady, that aren't in the US because of the perceived or real need for a manual review of updates. ou can write a script to eliminate most of the eyeball work but you can't eliminate it all.
Either way it won't stop infringement.
As for YouTube part of the terms of use is that you'll only use copyrighted work within a "fair use", "fair dealing" concept. Your idea could end up with people reporting what doesn't need reporting and not reporting what is due to confusion as most lay persons don't know the difference between fair use and infringement. A lot of lawyers can't give you a hard and fast rule either because the difference is largely contextual.
The "safe harbour" rule is one of the few good things about the DCMA from a consumer/artist point of view and the reporting structure sounds more stazi-like than anything really that will stop or reduce infringement.
You're right that there are plenty of other things to be alarmed about in SOPA than these but they're important too.
It's the total package that is fatally flawed.
On the post: Swiss Government Says File Sharing Isn't A Big Deal; Artist Are Fine, Industry Should Adapt
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That's why the all sound like they all come from out_of_the_blue's family.
On the post: Swiss Government Says File Sharing Isn't A Big Deal; Artist Are Fine, Industry Should Adapt
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Switzerland was a "safe haven" for Nazi gold, too.
I suspect the American courts will deal with that bit of silliness in due course.
The only major flaw, well fatal really, is that the recording industry did not offer a service similar to Napster when it got going so there was no service to sell in respect of people wanting singles from CD's rather than 11 or 12 bad songs -- they wanted the good one. (Another failure in customer service.) So people shared, even at dead slow dialup speeds.
And a recording isn't a service it's a product. Folks like lawyers, dentist, veteranarians and doctors provide a service. The recording industry sells a product.
A product, such as the CDs has no intrinsic or real value if no one wants it. Such as the crappy CDs of the day that brought about Napster and it's copycats.
Now as to willing to pay, generally after "trying it out" people are. But you don't seem to believe that so there's no point in kicking you in the general direction of studies that say that cause you're mind is about as open as a rusty steel trap.
But. please, please learn the difference between a service and a product. That kind of simple confusion is only going to convince me you're blue.
Which begs the question of why you didn't bother to log in or is it that DH said something about weird sex to you again?
On the post: RIAA Claims It Succeeded In Getting Piracy Under Control Years Ago
Re: Mike wants out-of-control piracy, upset by contrary claims.
If the RIAA repeats this, you'll fall in line as you always do and claim it's all under control.
Yes, one could say the RIAA has increased awareness of copyright and that it's valid (for now) for three generations (a generation is measured as 20 years) where the creator and his/her children and other heirs get to sit back and wallow in all that money the publisher never paid them because the budget to promote, distribute and print the book suddenly ended up costing more than the NASA manned mission to Mars will while doing nothing to prove whether or not zero gravity sex is or isn't fun.
And it's not Mike's problem, or mine, to solve the RIAA's problems for them. That part is real simple. In a free market it's adapt or die. Kinda like evolution, right? Not a thing to do with copyright or that imaginary $100 million movie you want to make. It's not your problem either. But as you want to make it yours fill your boots.
Out of one side of their mouths the RIAA claims that file sharing is killing them, killing their industry and turning artists into paupers (as if they give a tinker's damn about artists) and out of the other side they're now claiming that it's all under control, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the grass is growing (the grass they're smoking anyway). everyone is dancing in the pile of money they're making and the world is just a wonderful place.
Why then SOPA and IP Protect and what's the point in them if the RIAA has solved the problem?
Just wondering.
On the post: Publishers Can't Just Blame Ad Network For Having Ads On A Site That Links To Infringing Content
Re: PIRATES HAVE BROKEN THE INTERNET. They broke the TRUST.
"That's flatly criminal according to common law." The Common Law and Civil Law are not Criminal Law. Never have been, never will be. Both are disputes between citizens. Criminal Law is a dispute between the sovereign vs an individual. (In the US it's referred to as The State vs Joe Blow. In a constitutional monarchy like Canada it's Regina vs Joe Blow.) The concepts are entirely different. Which is why there's a different test to determine guilt. In criminal law it's the well known "beyond a reasonable doubt" which is a very high bar to set.
In civil and the common law the test it known as "balance of probabilities" Let me put it this way, say, Joe Blow, my neighbour after I've asked him repeatedly and very nicely (I am Canadian, after all and we have a series of "nice" genes unless we're playing hockey or fighting a war when we suddenly seem to turn them all off.) One day the dog drags himself home with a fractured skull and Joe Blow sues me for damaging his valuable property, a purebred mutt. I turn around and sue him for damages for the loss of face and my annual best flower garden awards every year since he got the thing because he lets his dog dedicate, urinate and dig in my garden despite repeated requests not to. Neighbour A sees Joe's dog go into the garden, hears the beast yelp in pain and half running half dragging itself back to Joe's yard. A short time later he sees me come out of my back yard wearing my steel toed boots. Neighbour B says she saw me go into the back yard shortly before the dog yelped and came out wearing my steel toed boots. Neither one has seen anything else.
My defense in court is that the dog was butted by a deer protecting its fawn. Neither deer nor fawn was seen. Even though we have trouble with deer getting into yards from the bush behind us all. The vet has been unable to determine what struck the dog. We're both found liable (guilty) and I have to pay for the dog's vet bill and ongoing treatment and he has to pay for my plants that the dog dug up even if most of my neighbours don't recall seeing the dog there all that often. So how did this happen? It couldn't in a criminal case because there is no evidence to move the case from "yeah, I probably did it" to "Yah, I probably did it but we can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt". And yeah we can't prove Joe's dog damaged my award winning flower bed even if that can't be proved beyond a reasonable doubt" but we are sure that's probably true too. The decisions were made on that, on balance of probability I injured Joe's dog and Joe allowed his dog to muck with my flower bed. So we both get an award and neither of us is any happier than we were before the whole thing began.
Though the whole thing is long forgotten now, Joe and I often share a beer on a hot summer afternoon, his dog figures he owns my garden now and guards it from everyone and everything except my cat.
The moral, blue, is be careful what you (and SOPA) wish for. The bar to jump over is much, much higher that it is in the common law or civil law. Right now you can accuse sites of being pirate sites and only have to prove "balance of probabilities". A much, much lower bar that criminal law's "beyond a reasonable doubt" as criminal law and civil and common law are built to do different things. And one involves the full power of the state.
As far as copyright goes, it's not a "Society has long codified..." thing. It's actually a recent innovation first appearing in 1709. 302 years is not "long codified into law" and certainly it did NOT appear because creating a story is hard to do. Read it. They don't mention "copying is always easier than creating from scratch" or words to that effect in the preamble to the statue or anywhere in the law and regulations pursuant to it. Anyway, copying is plagiarism not piracy.
Humans have been writing stories for the 6000 some odd years since writing was developed in the ancient world. So 302 years is not, by any stretch of the imagination, long. We are also a creative, story-telling and curious and inventing species and have been as long as humans have been on the earth, say 100,000 or so years. All without copyright.
Telling stories helps us make sense of the world around us. It entertains and educates us. It opens new possibilities and new worlds to us. With or without copyright we'll keep telling stories. Story-tellers won't stop telling or writing stories just because copyright vanishes. Inventors won't stop inventing should patents disappear. We have an incurable urge to find a better way to do something and we'll scratch that itch till we do. Always have, always will.
Bear in mind that should the worst happens and copyright vanishes you and other IP maximalists can take a good long look into the mirror and while you cry in your shaving creme and remember that you, NOT piracy killed it because the broad citizenship and society finally got fed up with ever restrictive and eternal copyright for the benefit of the few (certainly not the majority of authors or artists) and should it take patents with it you can thank yourself for that too because the rest of us got tired of you crying wolf.
We'll see what the United States gets from this. Election year and all that, you see. I'm not saying COPA won't pass or some version of it won't get through the House and Senate and be signed into law. But I wonder about the debate leading up to it and not just here.
As you're willing to break the Internet to do it. Are you equally willing to live through an extended recession and recovery to do it? I guess you must be.
Pirates, in the meantime, have broken nothing. Not trust not anything. If anyone has broken trust it's the RIAA, MPAA, the publishers associations and the politicians they've bought.
And out_of_the_blue.
Ta ta.
I do hope one day you learn a little about law, economics and the internet. Right now you have the understanding of a Grade 4 student. Make that Grade 3.
On the post: Publishers Can't Just Blame Ad Network For Having Ads On A Site That Links To Infringing Content
Re: Yes, Mike, the Internet enables symbiotic infringement.
Infringment is NOT repeat NOT a crime. It's a civil offense. Get that firmly hammered into your brain.
Notification of the alleged infringement (note not proven and still not proven) is exactly what was missing here. And it cost the infringing site money they paid to the ad agency not the other way around. (All of $17 a month but still you have the flow of money going upstream instead of downstream.)
So SOPA is not needed to simplify anything. A simple email would have done it followed, if necessary for whatever passes as a registered letter these days, must how it's ALWAYS been done.
And just what multiple co-operating thieves are you talking about? Oh, you mean infringers not thieves because infringing isn't a crime it's a civil offense.
Still, no new law is needed. Will ya read the article again and the analysis. The original ex parte award was overturned precisely because the plaintiff never DID bother no notify the defendant before hauling it off to court.
Now again, who are these multiple, co-operating "thieves" you speak of. Evidence and some semblance of proof, please. And please don't point at Google Ads, search engines and such things. All it shows it you haven't a clue what you're talking about.
(sigh)
On the post: Publishers Can't Just Blame Ad Network For Having Ads On A Site That Links To Infringing Content
Re: Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Dec 6th, 2011 @ 6:08am
If it's casual "infringers" you may have a point about DNS, but only maybe.
Minor things like always on B to B systems depends on accurate DNS to even function well or at all as well as cryptography and VPN. You wanna break that, too, do you?
Every voice call you make on a cell or on landline is routed through the internet until the person at the other end answers. So that needs accurate DNS, too. Unless, of course you want to stop that. If you do then be prepared to pay a lot more to telcos and cablecos for all the copper and fibre they'll need to install to get around the broken DNS system. In fact the switch you get your dial tone from runs it's internal network on TCP/IP protocol, the same one the Internet uses. Still wanna break DNS?
(I know this after 35 years of installing, repairing and designing business voice and data, backbone voice and data systems, not to mention video and satellite so I do know something of what I speak. Not to mention installing switches and ensuring they work with the myriad of equipment around them on the digital and, sometimes, bit level.)
The DNS system is NOT repeat NOT the soft middle. Anything but. It's critical to the function of the Internet. If you believe anything else you are a moron in an incredible hurry.
I've said this before but it bears repeating it's IP maximalists like you who don't even get the PURPOSE of copyright and patents who are gonna be the death of them not infringers. There is still some widespread support for both concepts out there but it's declining fast. And you and the RIAA, MPAA and things like SOPA and IP PROTECT that are the root cause of that decline not piracy.
And no one, I hope, is fool enough to want to ban or restrict cryptography and VPN just to protect the entertainment industry from damages it can't even PROVE. An industry that contributes 0.1% of GDP to the United States. But you're willing to take down the rest of the economy to do that. And believe me that's what a ban on cyrptography and VPN would do. Aren't things bad enough the way we are after the bankers have had a go at the world? I guess not.
And even you admit that it won't go one bit towards stopping piracy/infringment. It'll make what's largely casual not into something where a massive profit can be made and once you drive it underground by passing a pointless, unenforcable law against cryptography and VPN that'll bring in the same "I gotta bigger gun than you do" crowd that run the drug trade for all the good prohibition on certain drugs has done.
Before talking about just who is causing the decline in respect for IP laws take a good look in the mirror.
It's you.
On the post: Why Adversarial Hearings Are Important: Rulings Change When The Other Side Is Heard
Re: Legalistic Mike is for EVERY possible delay and dodge.
The publisher never bothered to send them a cease and desist letter or request before traipsing off to court. Nor to we know that the ad server would have resisted that request. If it were me I'd look into it, if I got the same impression the publisher had I'd have disconnected them. I'm not going to war over a $17/month account.
Morally (your word) the publisher had an obligation to send that notice. Due process demands that they were obligated to send that notice. Due process and morality both demand that both parties attempt a settlement before heading off to waste valuable court time. It never happened in this case. If I didn't know better I'd be beginning to wonder if you weren't the publisher's lawyer.
This has nothing to do with piracy. It has everything to do with law, due process and moral behaviour on both sides. The publisher failed on all counts.
If that's pro-piracy, I can live with that. If that makes me pro-piracy I can live with that too. I'd rather live under the rule of law than your twisted version of that that just might be and your view of the issue and the world in pure black and white, also known as binary thinking.
Me, I vote for the rule of law as it has evolved over the past thousand years. It does things better than you or I could and far better than COPA/IP PROTECT will. You'd rather pull out the sword and scream "set loose the dogs of war!" at the slightest suggestion that something might be, could be, possibly be, I had a dream about it be.
It's stances like yours that damage the entire concept of intellectual property than all the pirates in the world could ever accomplish. And that is NOT moral or ethical either.
On the post: Why Adversarial Hearings Are Important: Rulings Change When The Other Side Is Heard
Re: Justice Delayed = Justice Denied
Your statment indicates that you feel that the plaintiff is right in every detail when they allege infringment. In this case they were wrong, The ad server was an "innocent bystander" in this. The plantiff hasn't followed due process by issuing a "cease and desist" letter or any other form of warning or notice that the ad server stop serving ads to the site. They just assumed they must have known and went ahead. Right there the plaintiff didn't follow due process. You're supposed to try to settle before taking up court time.
I don't think the ad server would have fought all that hard to protect $17 a month. They may have responded to the publisher saying they didn't know but were taking down their ads, thanking them for the heads up and that would have been the end of it.
Instead the publisher went directly to court, in the absence of the ad server and got the ruling they wanted. When the ad server showed up the ruling was, for all practical purposes, overturned.
Incidentally, as I understand that India is a signatory to the Berne Copyright Convention, they could have taken the case to Delhi as well without extraterritorial imposition of US laws and court rulings. Might as well cover all the bases, also known as due process.
Back to the case in question. The plaintiff doesn't appear to have had an actionable case to begin with. At least as far as the ad server's enabling infringement is concerned.
One of the reasons ex parte rulings and injunctions are so frequently overturned is that the plaintiff has rushed off to court with an incomplete case, told only their side of the story and when the defendant appears either after appeal or of the scheduled full ruling date to present their side the holes in the case appear. To that end rush to ex parte often ends up wasting valuable court time to only determine the plaintiff had no case to start with because they don't have the necessary evidence for action (mere suspicion is this case aka "but they HAD to know!) to begin with, hadn't followed the rules and hadn't tried to settle before appearing in court.
As for printers of textbooks, they've been pricing in "piracy" for years. They've long known that, in some subjects, students will line up in front of photocopiers to copy entire books, that those finished the course that requires the book often sell them to those entering the course (loss of sale though not traditionally thought of as infringement as no copying has taken place) or in the case of very expensive textbooks simple theft (as in the physical act of stealing the book).
In civil cases both defendant and plaintiff have incentive to appear on the scheduled date. If one doesn't appear they lose -- pure and simple. Unless there is a very good reason they weren't there, and I mean more than a case of the sniffles, only a wildly out of line ruling can be appealed, at least in most provinces in Canada. So your argument that the defendant can delay a hearing simply by not showing up is false. And. in this case, there were no damages to relieve once both parties were allowed to appear so it was the defendant, not the plaintiff who suffered.
Also, courts have precious little patience with parties to a case who try to delay things by simply not appearing. No patience at all.
On the post: Kaspersky Dumps BSA For Its Support Of SOPA; Says SOPA Hurts Consumers & Innovation
Re:
On the post: Kaspersky Dumps BSA For Its Support Of SOPA; Says SOPA Hurts Consumers & Innovation
Re: It's true that SOPA isn't for "consumers".
You've qualified more times than enough on both counts.
As for Kazpersky they sell software supporting the Apache server, sell software that supports Linux and Mac firewalls and a host of other products. Some under GPL, some closed source. All of which proves.....nothing.
Kaspersky also has open source code out there to deal with DNS failures such as finding existing sites a DNS server can't locate which needs only minor updating to get around SOPAs blocking provisions.
The code, incidentally deals with a perfectly legitimate and legal response to an invalid response from a broken DNS server before you go off on a tangent about that being somehow evil and supporting pirates and stuff like that further illustrating your ignorance of the architecture of the Internet.
As has been noted already, contrary to your and the entertainment industry's claims that piracy leads to a drop in sales empirical evidence shows the opposite in studies that can be verified as being statistically valid and then duplicated. Too bad the entertainment industry's studies can't do the same no matter how often they and you have been asked to bring one forward.
People, of course, are responsible for being idiots if that's what they want to be and go to sites that are dangerous. They can do that quite well on their own accord with out any help from Kaspersky's software or any other malware program.
Your insistence that everyone opposed to SOPA/IP Protect must, somehow be pro-pirate is disingenuous as is your support for an industry you otherwise claim to oppose and its influence in Congress. Why? Because it's anti-pirate.
It's no such thing, of course, but it makes nice cover for legislation that is, in reality a protectionist welfare program for them. In the meantime it wants to force payment processors into denying sites money on the private, unassailable, unquestionable complaint of someone in an industry that has a track record of forever getting it wrong. and over reacting on the odd occasion they get it, sorta, kinda right. Denying the accused of due process along the way which is just another way of indulging in unreasonable search and seizure. That last bit simply isn't allowed. Read your own country's constitution.
You're supporting a law based on unproven evidence supporting a mythic loss of income by an industry that is still profitable but is finding it hard to compete in a vastly changed mileau that they have no intention of adapting to. They once owned the distribution channels and controlled them and they want it back even if they have to lie to get it back, bring down copyright law in order to do it because the governed (aka the citizenry) withdraw their support for it because it no longer serves the intent it was supposed to support both inside and outside of the United States, attempts apply laws which amount to unreasonable search and seizure and apply American laws extra territorially in violation of every trade agreement the USA has ever signed and in a fashion that should, say France try it on the United States there would be Senators, Congressmen and others foaming at the mouth for war. (0verstatement. Not by a lot by overstatement.)
SOPA isn't about customers, it's not about people going to dangerous sites to grab warez or that sort of thing, it's not about the artists and never has been, it's about the entertainment industry desperately trying to get control over something they will ultimately fail to gain control over...how products, ideas, music, inventions, software and progress will be spread and distributed in the future. That's why the tech industry opposes it, it's why Microsoft pushed the BSA to scale back its support and why Kazpersky broke with BSA on the issue publicly. Its why the entire open source movement is opposed to it. (Of course I'm sure you think they're all pirates, after all they just HAVE to be using the same illogic used by SCO). It's why musicians, writers, artists and others are opposed to it. Including myself.
All in all then, I guess, in your binary world view I just have to be pro-pirate.
I use open source software which I download or torrent for nothing from the distibutor's site (or worse yet that den of piracy called SourceForge), what I write is protected by copyright though I license it using a Creative Commons license that doesn't demand payment, simply attribution and I believe studies that say that, by and large, folks you call pirates are, in fact, consumers at the end of the day.
If that's what I am, then, "aye matey, I am and damned proud of it, I am."
Except that I have never knowingly infringed on anyone's copyright or patent in my life. I cite my sources when I quote from them, I use content as the artist wishes me to do from their own mouth and I could go on. I've never violated a patent that I'm aware of. (Though software patents are about as silly as plans anyone might have for human settlement on Venus.)
For all that I'm a pirate in your eyes and so be it. All because I oppose legislation like SOPA in the United States or similar legislation in my own country. I refuse to lose my freedoms and liberties for the good of an industry whose height of innovation seems to be "American Chopper Senior vs Junior". I could go on. I refuse to support censorship in any form particularly when it's imposed by government in support of private industry not just in the personage of the RIAA, MPAA or some publishers group. We had that not too long ago in Canada meant to support a relic from the mercantile era called the Hudson's Bay Company. I don't want to see it again. And I sure as hell oppose corporate welfare in any form for any reason but most of all one that can't open it's corporate mouth without lying about the reasons it needs it.
I'm told I don't suffer fools gladly, blue. That being the case I've suffered you for far too long. You're ignorant, a hypocrite and you just won't learn.
On the post: It's Official: RIAA Trying To Join Righthaven Lawsuit
Re:
But we'll find out at the appellate stage should they find a court that will listen to them.
Righthaven's presence or exclusion of the issue of fair use is moot as other interested parties will still there for the ruling.
But we'll see now as this grinds it's way through the rarified air of the upper echelons of the legal system.
Should be interesting. If not fun.
On the post: In A World Where Recorded Music 'No Longer Has Monetary Value,' The Artist Is King
Re:
If you want even more money and don't mind getting your hands dirty, then move to Moscow :)
On the post: In A World Where Recorded Music 'No Longer Has Monetary Value,' The Artist Is King
From the early 1950s to the mid 1970s there weren't just four or five monster labels out there controlling 100% of the distribution but hundreds of smaller ones each with their own distrubtion channels. You know Sun Records, for example. A&R meant meeting the artists not listening to a tape but listening to them play/sing or whatever and seeing the audience reaction.
During the 1950s it was these small labels that signed Elvis (Sun), most white rock'n'roll acts and virtually all black crossover acts. later grabbed up by the majors when they started to sell not to record as such but to distribute because they wanted control of that, more profitable part of the business.
British Invasion in 1963-64 was much the same. Other than the Beatles few English acts had American deals so small labels grabbed what they could and, when they started to sell the majors moved in and signed them from the small companies. Again, for the more profitable distribution end of the business.
There's nothing inherently evil in all of this, mind you. It's business in action, the RIAA hadn't turned into the single minded behemoth it's become now. There was still, actually competition in the business and the music flourished.
The serious merger and acquisition stuff started in the mid 1970s and has continued till now with the "majors" having reduced themselves to a small group.
New music is introduced by indie labels and, once again, acts are signed on to major labels for the distribution rights for the same reasons.
Now the internet has arrived and the distribution channel is fractured beyond belief. Anyone, with minimal knowledge can upload a file or 6 and start to distribute songs. The old rules don't exist any more because the game gets played so differently. Anyway, the RIAA and MPAA are still smarting from the deals they feel cornered into signing with Apple to start up iTunes and they lost the distribution channel there too. Worse, they had to sign the same deal with Amazon.
Worse yet indies are popping up everywhere and the RIAA and MPAA can't do anything about it. "Legally" or not it all ends up on the Internet. Their members or not, it all ends up on the Internet.
So now, feeling incredibly entitled, they feel the need to buy up as many members of the US Congress as they can and whine that their failure to keep up with the planet is somehow due to copyright infringement instead of strikingly bad business decisions.
Sadly there are otherwise intelligent people who seem to agree with them who might not have been paid off.
Then I remember that it's the RIAA as it existed and it's members who got blasted over the payola scandal in the late 1950s and come to the delighted conclusion that nothing has changed with them and if all else fails they always fall back on blatant corruption.
It's nice to know there are some constants in an otherwise changing world.
On the post: In A World Where Recorded Music 'No Longer Has Monetary Value,' The Artist Is King
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Let me put it another way. Metallica and Lou Reed decide to do something they call Lulu. The call up Bob Rock at his West Vancouver home and say "we got a job for ya and we'll send you the money via Paypal immediately if you say yes".
Faster than light speed Bob Rock is pulling up outside Lou Reed's studio in New York and off they go. Even if it's a dud it looks good on Rock's c/v that he's worked with Lou Reed as he can produce (and perform) bad metal in his sleep so Metallica is no big deal. Anyway, who cares? He's paid, got the job with Lou Reed and he's happy and they got thier record out. Done Deal.
On the post: RIAA Really Planning To Join Righthaven Fight
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(I just couldn't resist!)
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