We NEED new politicians for the love of God, these dolts are clueless - they are still trying to run the US like it's 1940 and a with a tyrannical power expansionist policy on top of that.
Paying more than 5.00 for a PDF - is not going to happen for most people, lol.
But then the industry's view on SOPA/Copyright has little to do with the free market - I'm surprised SOPA didn't incorporate price fixing right into the bill.
Copyright should give the artist full rights for 10-15 years, after that - it's public domain, pure and simple. I can't understand if someone didn't make a profit on media after 15 years why there should still be a cloud over it like there is now. This would also open up massive amounts of content to 'sate' the pirates and enforcement on new and still copyright protected media would be dramatically easier since you would narrow the scope of 'criminal vs. non-criminal' use.
This would also eliminate a lot of the court's wasted time on 70 year old copyright suits where some obscure family member tries to sue a media company over rights.
Non-transferable to anyone period. If it's THEIR work - BY LAW - they should retain the copyright - this would prevent media companies from taking rights over media they didn't create themselves. This will have some more impact with really 'protecting the artist'.
Of course, if the media company commissions the work or someone who's a direct employee makes it, of course the media company would have a stake or all of the rights.
Additionally, there should be a portion of racketeering laws that prevent media companies from trying to 'strong arm' artists into giving up rights or forcing them into an employee relationship in order to obtain the rights.
I know there would be particulars to work out - but it's overdoing it now, by far.
This is about protecting the artist after all, right?
This is especially funny in the wake of RIAA CEO Cary Sherman's recent interview, in which he claimed record labels were needed to "separate the wheat from the chaff" and "designate who is worth promoting and marketing".
So you guys promoted Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Chopin, and others too then right?
*SO VERY GLAD* you were there to 'seperate the wheat and the chaff' - else, we might have never heard Mozart.
/sarcasm off
Lucky for us consumers - new media will start doing that automatically.
Too bad for the RIAA and many other big media, but with the limitless distro network on the web - ummmm, you guys ARE the chaff now, just getting in the way of music.
So this means if a newspaper prints something about me...
I can sue for copyright violations?
After all; what makes these news outlets the 'king' of information in regards to news? They don't own it.
If each person who a story has ever been written about started suing - I doubt it would be long before traditional news is just gone... Even if not one person won, the logistics of dealing with the thousands of court cases would certainly strain their budgets.
And hell, why not - it's the mode of operation for 'media' today isn't it?
Especially since the language "Congress shall make no law" in the first amendment clearly gives the right to protest preference over this one.
Yes, but as we can see on the 'religion' portion of that - government just outright ignores the rule of law itself.
You can argue about church/state separation all day - but the law doesn't state that in the literal wording - it simply states that congress shall make no law.
Problem is - politicians seem to not quite understand English well enough to know what "NO" means.
They are making so many laws, it just results in each one being harder to actually enforce.
But a large - if not the largest problem - with the whole situation is that many politicians, 'law' enforcement agencies, and corporations refuse to follow the rule of law themselves.
It will only be time before this really sinks into the people - and they ask, "If they don't have to follow the rule of law, why do I?"
A Tyranny can only push so far; at a point life becomes almost meaningless once there are enough chains on people; then a revolt is well worth a try - and as history shows - often successful.
It routes AROUND damage. So these "pissed off" people you seem to claim are out there, were probably pissed off for like, I dunno, 24 to 48 hours, and then they A) found everything they wanted when it got uploaded somewhere else B) they found a torrent of it or C) they moved on to something else. And since you mentioned it was a forum, I bet most of the dead links got responses that listed where the content can be found on other services that aren't mega.
I suspect the only content you won't be able to find now is older legal stuff.
Illegal stuff will end up posted elsewhere, but there were many game MODS, documents, and custom created content on Megaupload. To be honest, I wasn't even aware there was pirated crap there, until I heard all this news, but then I'm not in the 'piracy scene'.
I'm just a legit customer who's usually pissed off at the gouging the "entertainment" industry tries on the consumer.
Thank gosh for on-demand and libraries. I'm not opposed to paying a *FAIR* price, but the prices aren't fair.
How is it fair to charge $15.00 for a digital download of 15 songs? What 'cost' is incurred in this? 20,000 a year to maintain the server hosting it, if that?
If the RIAA had *any clue* of how much music I DID NOT buy due to the pricing I bet they'd be amazed.
$15.00 probably don't seem like much to the money-mongers at the RIAA and really it isn't much - in a relative sense.. Until you think of how easy it is to duplicate digital music - then you realize... it's a rip-off.
I'll just hit the radio, pandora or cable for music.
Of course they are. This is like busting on drug dealing outfit - you just end up with others springing up.
Worst part is, I was trying to download some MODS for a game that recently put out a new expansion pack. Sadly, most of the mods were on MegaUpload. Since I didn't have the money to get the expansion just yet, I was going to add some MODS to my existing install to see if I would 'get into' the game again with some new spice in it.
I ended up just forgetting about it and started up another game.
So EA will lose me buying the next expansion for the game, but then I started getting into another game... and was planning on buying the newest version tonight.
As for movies - free or not free, I'm not paying $20 for a new movie on DVD, sorry. I am patient, I can wait for it to turn up used, or just watch more of the on-demand I already pay for.
But we get back to the CORE portion of all of this:
How many movies/music have you bought *WITHOUT* hearing or seeing it for free first? Sure maybe some you'll buy after going to the Cinema - I bought Avatar. And Avatar is the only new movie I've bought in 7 years or so due to prices - and it was a gift, lol.
But for Christmas this year, I bought loads of used DVD's for $1.00 each and gifted those out. I even commented that they are used, but I could get them 20 times more movies - everyone actually seemed to appreciate that, and asked me where I got them for a dollar at...
Out of the movies I've bought over the last two months - used - I've seen them all before, just wanted a copy.
Music - I almost never buy without hearing it first... on the radio, pandora, etc - FOR FREE.
Yes, these jobs *monitoring* everything - will become prime jobs for freaks and criminals.
I won't mention any specifics, of course, but a place where I work or worked, I found a massive amount of pretty fringe porn - and it was in the home folder of someone in the upper tier of IT security.
You are making the assumption that the total buying market is 100 times larger at the low price point then the high one.
Oh - but on that - how often are 'cheap' prices tried? Are they making an assumption the market is only 'so big' but in reality, if the prices were reasonable it would be 100 times that?
How many Harry Potter books would sell at $2.00 a copy? They'll never try it to find out, will they?
The patient people will just wait for them to show up in used book stores - I do.
it is clear that Ebooks are about to undergo the same piracy revolution that hit music and movies. It's doubtful that people will pay $2 for something they can get easily for free.
But on that - most any book you can buy - is free, right now, at the library...
And either way - in today's digital age, knowing how easy it is to duplicate content - I'm simply not going to pay the 'old' prices.
Do without? Sure I will. It's not a big deal - because on the total other side of the coin - there is such a huge volume of *legit* stuff out there for free - what does it matter?
I can often get more enjoyment out of reading blogs than a book and I can often get more enjoyment watching stuff on YouTube than paying $14.95 for a 90 minute movie.
There are free games, free movies, free music, free books out there on the web in massive quantities. I bet I can find more free books on the web now than most brick and mortar stores have - and I'm totally talking legit content.
And if not, the library is 5 minutes from my house. I can check out whatever I want for free.
There are a few books I might be willing to pay more than $20.00 for - but not many.
Over the last couple years, the only time I have paid that much for a book are technical training types of books. Otherwise, I grab them up cheap at places going out of business or used book stores.
I went to on big chain bookstore that was closing recently - I bought a stack of cheap books, but many there were still full price - I suppose they can just keep those.
Imagine a machine with DVDs in it, with nothing labeled on them. Without knowing what they were would you stick $1 into the slot to get one? Would you put in more to get one? Is there a label on the machine that says pay what you want?
At $1.00? yeah, I might buy a couple. It's only a buck.
Each time I go to the grocery store, I glance at the movies - I see "$14.95" or more. Then I think - well, I'm already paying for on-demand, so I'll skip that.
How many do they sell that way? :)
None. I'm not paying more than 10 bucks for a movie anymore - ever. Period. They are easy to duplicate and I know it.
I may not torrent them, but I won't pay stupid prices for them either. Of course, I don't really need torrent with on-demand, plus I'm a gamer mostly anyway.
The "traditional" business model that many think of is always about profit per item - profit margin.
But now, with so much electronic, it should be about quantity, since so many things now can be duplicated freely.
Even in the case of the physical books here - if they cost $0.50 to make - you can perhaps sell "X" amount at $22.95 or something - as it common in the US.
But if you can sell them at $2.00 each and sell 100 times as many - why not? Perhaps in raw numbers, in the short term it might look like you would have made more at $22.95 - but once you foster or re-kindle the reading interest in many people, if the books are cheap - they may buy 20 times the amount they would have at $22.95 - in the long term, making even more.
But most of these companies now a days are SO focused on the short term, that they totally ignore the long term.
Companies today don't consider loyalty or return customers in their day to day business - the goal is to shaft the customer hard, so that even if they don't come back, you can meet your quarterly projections.
This is why there are some companies I outright avoid totally - I don't care how 'new' or 'cool' their new product is - I know it will be junk.
On the post: US Government Admits It Has Seized Hundreds Of Domains Registered Outside The US
We NEED new politicians for the love of God, these dolts are clueless - they are still trying to run the US like it's 1940 and a with a tyrannical power expansionist policy on top of that.
On the post: US Government Finally Realizes That Publishers & Apple Conspiring To Raise eBook Prices Is Price Fixing
But then the industry's view on SOPA/Copyright has little to do with the free market - I'm surprised SOPA didn't incorporate price fixing right into the bill.
On the post: What Will The Future Of Copyright Look Like? Contest Offers Prize For Best Proposal
This would also eliminate a lot of the court's wasted time on 70 year old copyright suits where some obscure family member tries to sue a media company over rights.
Non-transferable to anyone period. If it's THEIR work - BY LAW - they should retain the copyright - this would prevent media companies from taking rights over media they didn't create themselves. This will have some more impact with really 'protecting the artist'.
Of course, if the media company commissions the work or someone who's a direct employee makes it, of course the media company would have a stake or all of the rights.
Additionally, there should be a portion of racketeering laws that prevent media companies from trying to 'strong arm' artists into giving up rights or forcing them into an employee relationship in order to obtain the rights.
I know there would be particulars to work out - but it's overdoing it now, by far.
This is about protecting the artist after all, right?
On the post: What Will The Future Of Copyright Look Like? Contest Offers Prize For Best Proposal
Do we have any media copiers in the theater tonight...?
GET THEM UP AGAINST THE WALL!
On the post: KiD CuDi's WZRD Debuts At No. 3 Despite Being Swept Under The Rug By Universal
So you guys promoted Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Chopin, and others too then right?
*SO VERY GLAD* you were there to 'seperate the wheat and the chaff' - else, we might have never heard Mozart.
/sarcasm off
Lucky for us consumers - new media will start doing that automatically.
Too bad for the RIAA and many other big media, but with the limitless distro network on the web - ummmm, you guys ARE the chaff now, just getting in the way of music.
On the post: Dear Big Newspapers: Keep Putting Up Silly Paywalls And Clear The Internet Field For Us 'Newcomers'
Gannett, I was paying freely - twist my arm.. too bad, not a dime now.
On the post: German Government Wants Google To Pay To Show News Snippets
I can sue for copyright violations?
After all; what makes these news outlets the 'king' of information in regards to news? They don't own it.
If each person who a story has ever been written about started suing - I doubt it would be long before traditional news is just gone... Even if not one person won, the logistics of dealing with the thousands of court cases would certainly strain their budgets.
And hell, why not - it's the mode of operation for 'media' today isn't it?
On the post: Chipping Away At The First Amendment: New 'Trespassing' Bill Could Be Used To Criminalize Legitimate Protests
Yes, but as we can see on the 'religion' portion of that - government just outright ignores the rule of law itself.
You can argue about church/state separation all day - but the law doesn't state that in the literal wording - it simply states that congress shall make no law.
Problem is - politicians seem to not quite understand English well enough to know what "NO" means.
On the post: Chipping Away At The First Amendment: New 'Trespassing' Bill Could Be Used To Criminalize Legitimate Protests
But a large - if not the largest problem - with the whole situation is that many politicians, 'law' enforcement agencies, and corporations refuse to follow the rule of law themselves.
It will only be time before this really sinks into the people - and they ask, "If they don't have to follow the rule of law, why do I?"
A Tyranny can only push so far; at a point life becomes almost meaningless once there are enough chains on people; then a revolt is well worth a try - and as history shows - often successful.
On the post: Has The Megaupload Shutdown Been Good For The Entertainment Industry?
The media companies should FOCUS on the customers that DO pay, like myself.
Give us a 'good deal' and we'll buy it.
I don't pirate, for moral reasons above anything. But I don't waste money either.
On the post: Has The Megaupload Shutdown Been Good For The Entertainment Industry?
I suspect the only content you won't be able to find now is older legal stuff.
Illegal stuff will end up posted elsewhere, but there were many game MODS, documents, and custom created content on Megaupload. To be honest, I wasn't even aware there was pirated crap there, until I heard all this news, but then I'm not in the 'piracy scene'.
I'm just a legit customer who's usually pissed off at the gouging the "entertainment" industry tries on the consumer.
Thank gosh for on-demand and libraries. I'm not opposed to paying a *FAIR* price, but the prices aren't fair.
How is it fair to charge $15.00 for a digital download of 15 songs? What 'cost' is incurred in this? 20,000 a year to maintain the server hosting it, if that?
If the RIAA had *any clue* of how much music I DID NOT buy due to the pricing I bet they'd be amazed.
$15.00 probably don't seem like much to the money-mongers at the RIAA and really it isn't much - in a relative sense.. Until you think of how easy it is to duplicate digital music - then you realize... it's a rip-off.
I'll just hit the radio, pandora or cable for music.
On the post: Has The Megaupload Shutdown Been Good For The Entertainment Industry?
Of course they are. This is like busting on drug dealing outfit - you just end up with others springing up.
Worst part is, I was trying to download some MODS for a game that recently put out a new expansion pack. Sadly, most of the mods were on MegaUpload. Since I didn't have the money to get the expansion just yet, I was going to add some MODS to my existing install to see if I would 'get into' the game again with some new spice in it.
I ended up just forgetting about it and started up another game.
So EA will lose me buying the next expansion for the game, but then I started getting into another game... and was planning on buying the newest version tonight.
As for movies - free or not free, I'm not paying $20 for a new movie on DVD, sorry. I am patient, I can wait for it to turn up used, or just watch more of the on-demand I already pay for.
But we get back to the CORE portion of all of this:
How many movies/music have you bought *WITHOUT* hearing or seeing it for free first? Sure maybe some you'll buy after going to the Cinema - I bought Avatar. And Avatar is the only new movie I've bought in 7 years or so due to prices - and it was a gift, lol.
But for Christmas this year, I bought loads of used DVD's for $1.00 each and gifted those out. I even commented that they are used, but I could get them 20 times more movies - everyone actually seemed to appreciate that, and asked me where I got them for a dollar at...
Out of the movies I've bought over the last two months - used - I've seen them all before, just wanted a copy.
Music - I almost never buy without hearing it first... on the radio, pandora, etc - FOR FREE.
On the post: Funny How Sensitive Hollywood Gets When You Threaten To Mess With Its 'Fundamental' Structure
Yes, lol - why would I pay $35.00 for a single movie?
I pay LESS than that for Cinemax premium on-demand and can watch a ton of movies a month. For $35.00 I could add another movie channel too.
Or just spend $2.00 and buy a used DVD, lol
Maybe not high def, but the wallet stays fatter. Clear easy choice for me.
On the post: Funny How Sensitive Hollywood Gets When You Threaten To Mess With Its 'Fundamental' Structure
It's their fault.
On the post: Key Techdirt SOPA/PIPA Post Censored By Bogus DMCA Takedown Notice
On the post: How New Internet Spying Laws Will Actually ENABLE Stalkers, Spammers, Phishers And, Yes, Pedophiles & Terrorists
I won't mention any specifics, of course, but a place where I work or worked, I found a massive amount of pretty fringe porn - and it was in the home folder of someone in the upper tier of IT security.
On the post: Vending Machine Sells Books For Whatever Price You Want
Oh - but on that - how often are 'cheap' prices tried? Are they making an assumption the market is only 'so big' but in reality, if the prices were reasonable it would be 100 times that?
How many Harry Potter books would sell at $2.00 a copy? They'll never try it to find out, will they?
The patient people will just wait for them to show up in used book stores - I do.
On the post: Vending Machine Sells Books For Whatever Price You Want
But on that - most any book you can buy - is free, right now, at the library...
And either way - in today's digital age, knowing how easy it is to duplicate content - I'm simply not going to pay the 'old' prices.
Do without? Sure I will. It's not a big deal - because on the total other side of the coin - there is such a huge volume of *legit* stuff out there for free - what does it matter?
I can often get more enjoyment out of reading blogs than a book and I can often get more enjoyment watching stuff on YouTube than paying $14.95 for a 90 minute movie.
There are free games, free movies, free music, free books out there on the web in massive quantities. I bet I can find more free books on the web now than most brick and mortar stores have - and I'm totally talking legit content.
And if not, the library is 5 minutes from my house. I can check out whatever I want for free.
There are a few books I might be willing to pay more than $20.00 for - but not many.
Over the last couple years, the only time I have paid that much for a book are technical training types of books. Otherwise, I grab them up cheap at places going out of business or used book stores.
I went to on big chain bookstore that was closing recently - I bought a stack of cheap books, but many there were still full price - I suppose they can just keep those.
On the post: Vending Machine Sells Books For Whatever Price You Want
At $1.00? yeah, I might buy a couple. It's only a buck.
Each time I go to the grocery store, I glance at the movies - I see "$14.95" or more. Then I think - well, I'm already paying for on-demand, so I'll skip that.
How many do they sell that way? :)
None. I'm not paying more than 10 bucks for a movie anymore - ever. Period. They are easy to duplicate and I know it.
I may not torrent them, but I won't pay stupid prices for them either. Of course, I don't really need torrent with on-demand, plus I'm a gamer mostly anyway.
On the post: Vending Machine Sells Books For Whatever Price You Want
But now, with so much electronic, it should be about quantity, since so many things now can be duplicated freely.
Even in the case of the physical books here - if they cost $0.50 to make - you can perhaps sell "X" amount at $22.95 or something - as it common in the US.
But if you can sell them at $2.00 each and sell 100 times as many - why not? Perhaps in raw numbers, in the short term it might look like you would have made more at $22.95 - but once you foster or re-kindle the reading interest in many people, if the books are cheap - they may buy 20 times the amount they would have at $22.95 - in the long term, making even more.
But most of these companies now a days are SO focused on the short term, that they totally ignore the long term.
Companies today don't consider loyalty or return customers in their day to day business - the goal is to shaft the customer hard, so that even if they don't come back, you can meet your quarterly projections.
This is why there are some companies I outright avoid totally - I don't care how 'new' or 'cool' their new product is - I know it will be junk.
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