It's a fail because it isn't the single download that is the "damage", it's the fact that the song was potentially passed on to a million more people.
Even in torrent terms, if the user only shares each part of the song once to a different person, and there are 5000 blocks, then they are part of 5000 infringements. So your 50 cent measurement means that the user was part of $2500 worth of damage, triple that to $7500 no problem. At $2000 or so per song and a short list of the total songs she was sharing, Ms Thomas is getting off with a proverbial slap on the wrist.
Now that you have a judgment against Ms Thomas, it wouldn't be anywhere near as difficult to prove the rest of the infringements. Don't bother to go to court to appeal, just launch a new lawsuit with the next 50 or 100 songs on it. Remember, nothing has been appealed that overturns the judgment, just the amount.
They don't have to do this, obviously, and it would be spun + very poorly by the torrentmedia types. $2000 per infringement is still more than enough to discourage most people.
Are you really saying that the Government, who we elect to serve us, should ignore the will of the people and create laws in secrete? Really?
No, I am saying that in electing a government and representatives (every 4 years, every 6 years, etc) you effectively create a proxy for your vote through these people. They are not bound to follow your exact individual wills, as that would be impossible. Rather, they do what they (and their party, if you are in the US) decide is the right course of action. After that time frame is up, you grade their work and either elect them again, or replace them.
Democracy does not mean that you vote on every individual bill, every individual spending act, every individual new law. You elect people for a term to do that instead. in many places, where the win was 53%, it means that the will of 47% in theory is ignored.
Most importantly, and this is the key: You as a single individual do not have a veto right over any new laws. Even 10% of the people cannot get together and veto a law. If this was possibly, the drug lords and the heroin users would have long since repealed the drug laws just to make their lives easier.
In the case of this particular item (which is not specifically law as much as a treaty negotiation), the secrecy is only there I think to allow a more open flow of ideas within the system without fear of public outrage or misunderstanding of the discussion. It would be very easy for the 1%ers to scare the crap out of people by misrepresenting bargaining positions or comment made. Mike ran a story a few weeks back about a leaked document and a comment made by one group involved (UK I think) that was run pretty hard.
I would say "wait for the end result, then debate the end result" rather than the current tilting at windmills methods going on.
Taken by itself, the post is just about how one unlucky guy stupid enough to keep parking his can in the camera's direct line of site has gotten a couple of misdirected tickets (out of how many issued, we don't know).
Taken as part of the Techdirt website, it is another one of Mike's kicks at automated identification, tracking systems, and the like. The logic? If a police officer looking at a still image can't figure out which car is speeding, how can an ISP tell which user is file sharing illegally?
The fail is that humans (and machines) are not entirely perfect, but that in the vast majority of cases, they are right. Mr Buck got a couple of misdirected speeding tickets, and a printer got a copyright violation notice. Rather than note all the correctly directed tickets or correctly directed violation notices, Mike chooses to work the exceptions as if they are the rule.
You really do need to step back and understand the underlying themes of Techdirt.
Nobody is attempting to make it illegal to teach fishing, or anything else like that.
heck, teach everyone to fish. They can all go fishing, and the economy can suffer because rather than buying fish at the market in 5 minutes on the way home from work, everyone spends half their days trying to catch dinner. In the end, most people don't care to know how to fish anymore, because it is a significant waste of time for them to do it. Anyone who wants to learn is free to do it, just don't steal the fish out of someone elses boat and claim to be a fisherman (rather than a thief).
Opportunity cost is one of those things in business that Mike never likes to talk about.
God, you are funny. Do you even read your own quotes? "campus", "young voters". You continue to be the weakest link by far, and not even a very good troll.
The 10% number is a study posted by Mike here on Techdirt. You can look around for it. He thought it was off.
The Canadian study Mike so often points to showed that only 20% of online users in Canada had downloaded a file in the previous 30 days, even with a totally passive legal situation that tolerates file sharing.
So sorry, but reality called and set the record straight for you. Even Mike wouldn't be so silly as to use the type of quotes you are pushing.
I have to say that I get a laugh out of the lengths that people will go to try to hide illegal fie sharing under legitimate looking logical blinds.
Made music isn't the same as teaching someone how to make music. Giving someone an MP3 file of a song isn't the same as teaching them how to play guitar. Nobody is attempting to make music lessons illegal.
This is one of those major stretches of logic, pretty much snapping it completely.
Shouldn't it be:
"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day... expecting the fisherman to give away all his catch every day means no more fishermen"?
you want more music? MAKE YOUR OWN. You want more movies? MAKE YOUR OWN.
the story lacks some data that would put this all in perspective. The simple question is "how many valid tickets are issued by this device?"
While it is unfortunate for Mr Buck ( and likely his plate is now tagged in the system for this camera ), I am confident that the vast majority of the tickets issued are valid, and that the presence of such as device (bright yellow and easy to see) has had the desired effects of lowering speed in that particular area.
I guess because mistakes are occasionally made that the entire system should be tossed out, regardless of any positive effects that might happen.
I have to say that the lawyer's comments are both amusing and a little bit of sour grapes.
"The alarming upshot of the court's decision is that so long as the government spies on all Americans, the courts have no power to review or halt such mass surveillance even when it is flatly illegal and unconstitutional," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston
I would have to say that Mr Bankston should probably do a little better groundwork and actually find an individual case to argue. The courts ruled correctly (there is no specific case to argue in front of them). He needs to find a case to argue and then argue it. What was presented here appears to be mostly something that would be put forth as part of a supreme court argument, not a specific case.
The EFF does some really good work, but this is one of those examples where it is just flailing around without a foothold.
Sorry, I have to correct you on something (I make the mistake in wording at times as well). Society as a whole does not mean that everyone gets an individual vote on every item, nor do they get some sort of magical veto power. There is never a requirement to make 100% of the people happy.
Heck, if you look at the way laws are passed in the US, based on the votes of the house or senate, you would say that 40% or so of the people are always unhappy. In most democracies, consensus is rarely reached, rather the majority of the day passes the laws that the majority of the future will likely not repeal.
If some businesses find themselves on the wrong side of a changing consensus, boo-hoo for them
That changing consensus would depend on the question you ask. If you ask "would you like all music and movies for free all the time", generally the public would quickly answer "hell yeah!". But if you asked "Would you like the current music and movies from hollywood and the big movie companies to disappear and be replaced by cheaper, unknown acts and independant movies, but they would be free" the anwer would be more like "hell no!".
The current "consensus" only exists because for the moment, enough people are still paying for the products to support their production. That consensus would change when those products stop being in the marketplace.
Taken another way, consider the public's twin (and contradictory) desires to both enjoy booze and not get killed while driving. Driving drunk is becoming less and less socially acceptable in part because the public has seen the other end of the scale (when police use to turn a blind eye, never did checkpoints, etc). When presented with their options of unlimited freedom (drink and drive, the sheriff don't mind and he don't work on Saturday night), or restricted freedoms with more of what they like (living longer lives) the tides have turned.
Watch closely. The consensus change you are seeing is only a very small part of a larger and longer trend. You could have taken from the days of moonshining that people didn't want commercially made booze, or preferred bathtub gin to London dry gin, but the longer trend showed that not to be the case. It is helpful to stand back a couple of paces, getting to see more forest and fewer of those trees.
Speeding is exactly like copyright infringement. The laws for speed are set by the elected officials, and the public the votes with their right foot. They can choose to break the law or not. You can choose to download that file illegally or not. It's the way things go.
The general public is just supposed to pay taxes and allow those tax dollars to be used serve the will of a few against the will of the general public.
Once you start down this road, you sound like a ton foil hatter hard at work. We aren't talking about "against the will of the general public" we are talking about against the will of a small percentage of the general public. hck, one UK study on file trading showed only 10% of people claimed to be file traders. By your own logic, why would 10% of the population be allowed to dictate to the other 90% what they should do? Would you like it if 10% of the people decides that your house was now a crack den, and you didn't get a choice? Perhaps 10% of the people decide you have to be a gay prostitute 2 days a month?
Your logic is just a major fail.
you don't care for the artists nor for the general public, just yourself and your unowed monopoly on everything
I don't really have to go any further than that. I don't work in the music industry, I don't work for hollywood, and I don't produce movie or music content. It isn't MY monopoly (nor is it a monopoly at all!).
In the end, your post is a rant, not a logical discussion. You are the weakest link, goodbye.
Good morning from Thailand, where piracy is as strong as ever and the latest movies are for sale on every street corner!
I have to say that this is one of those deals where if you look at the numbers in one specific way, you can find a way to support the Torrent Freak story. But the 2nd page (of the two page link near the bottom of their story) shows the real truth:
File sharers spend 1/3 less on music than the highest category, "digital music buyers". I can understand there is some confusion, as the categories are not "either or" but rather than people can appear in more than one. It is clear however that those who share music tend to buy less of it (rather than more), even though there are some who do buy music (and are part of digital music buyers).
The real key to understanding the numbers is in the very firsst graph, showing how few file sharing people actually buy physical product. As physical product is still the largest part of the pie (in income), the rest of the story writes itself.
I think the most interesting numbers here are in the Ipod owners, who are not particularly heavy music buyers, but who are typically huge music consumers. Under normal times, someone with a device with 1000+ songs on it would likely have spent thousands of dollars to have such a collection. The numbers reported here show about $150 a year (or less) spent on music, which would mean they would have to spend for about 8 years to have the 1000+ songs on their pod. You would have to think that Ipod owners are likely also some of the most aggressive music sharers out there.
So even when presented with the alternatives, file sharers don't buy anywhere near as much music overall as the general public, which sort of shuts down all the "file sharers are great customers" spiel. It just isn't supported by the numbers, unless you want to ignore 75% of the market first.
Mike, you have been writing techdirt for more than 10 years, and you know that without a doubt, the public has pulled things their way almost exclusively for the last 7 or 8 years. Much of today's "take it, it's free" society is as a result of this massive shift of power away from rights holders and into the hands of the general public. This is why members of the public feel they are the ones to decide what will be put online, what will be made free, and what will be shared without permission.
Being a rights holder is pretty much like being assigned as a second class citizen, as the general public has decision powers over your products.
Much of it happens because of the legal tap dancing around "illegal" torrents and file sharing, particularly the use of harbor countries, variations between laws, and such. What we end up with is various and contradictory rulings, which are difficult to enforce but very easy to use as lubrication for the file sharing culture.
The public isn't invited to be part of the process mostly because the public has already spoken clearly with it's actions, and those actions show a total lack of respect for the concepts of IP and rights. We don't ask drivers who speed to help establish safe speed limits, why ask people who don't respect the current laws to help craft new (and tougher) laws that they won't want to respect either?
The biggest problem about "selling the scarce" is that many of the scarcities are very artificial indeed. The only true scarcities are things limited by personal time (in music, call it a personal appearance, the old meet and greet, whatever), or limited very specifically by a physical limitation.
Heck, even concert tickets are artificially scarce, except for the very few acts that can fill a football stadium for a show every night of the year. Otherwise, the scarcity is created artificially by playing a smaller venue then the number of people who desire to see the shows.
In all of this process, there is one very real scarcity that has had it's price, it's market value, and slowly it's underlying value stripped away: Original material.
Artificial scarcity is the magician's flash paper of economics, it takes your eyes away from where the real action happens.
On the post: Court Reduces Award In Jammie Thomas-Rasset Case From $80,000 Per Song To $2,250
Re: Re:
Even in torrent terms, if the user only shares each part of the song once to a different person, and there are 5000 blocks, then they are part of 5000 infringements. So your 50 cent measurement means that the user was part of $2500 worth of damage, triple that to $7500 no problem. At $2000 or so per song and a short list of the total songs she was sharing, Ms Thomas is getting off with a proverbial slap on the wrist.
On the post: Court Reduces Award In Jammie Thomas-Rasset Case From $80,000 Per Song To $2,250
Re: Re: Law
Now that you have a judgment against Ms Thomas, it wouldn't be anywhere near as difficult to prove the rest of the infringements. Don't bother to go to court to appeal, just launch a new lawsuit with the next 50 or 100 songs on it. Remember, nothing has been appealed that overturns the judgment, just the amount.
They don't have to do this, obviously, and it would be spun + very poorly by the torrentmedia types. $2000 per infringement is still more than enough to discourage most people.
On the post: 'Public' Consultation Over ACTA In Mexico Almost Required NDAs, Blogger Removed For Tweeting
Re: Yes
On the post: 'Public' Consultation Over ACTA In Mexico Almost Required NDAs, Blogger Removed For Tweeting
Re: Re: Re:
No, I am saying that in electing a government and representatives (every 4 years, every 6 years, etc) you effectively create a proxy for your vote through these people. They are not bound to follow your exact individual wills, as that would be impossible. Rather, they do what they (and their party, if you are in the US) decide is the right course of action. After that time frame is up, you grade their work and either elect them again, or replace them.
Democracy does not mean that you vote on every individual bill, every individual spending act, every individual new law. You elect people for a term to do that instead. in many places, where the win was 53%, it means that the will of 47% in theory is ignored.
Most importantly, and this is the key: You as a single individual do not have a veto right over any new laws. Even 10% of the people cannot get together and veto a law. If this was possibly, the drug lords and the heroin users would have long since repealed the drug laws just to make their lives easier.
In the case of this particular item (which is not specifically law as much as a treaty negotiation), the secrecy is only there I think to allow a more open flow of ideas within the system without fear of public outrage or misunderstanding of the discussion. It would be very easy for the 1%ers to scare the crap out of people by misrepresenting bargaining positions or comment made. Mike ran a story a few weeks back about a leaked document and a comment made by one group involved (UK I think) that was run pretty hard.
I would say "wait for the end result, then debate the end result" rather than the current tilting at windmills methods going on.
On the post: Parked Car Gets Multiple Speed Camera Tickets
Re: Re: Missing data
Taken by itself, the post is just about how one unlucky guy stupid enough to keep parking his can in the camera's direct line of site has gotten a couple of misdirected tickets (out of how many issued, we don't know).
Taken as part of the Techdirt website, it is another one of Mike's kicks at automated identification, tracking systems, and the like. The logic? If a police officer looking at a still image can't figure out which car is speeding, how can an ISP tell which user is file sharing illegally?
The fail is that humans (and machines) are not entirely perfect, but that in the vast majority of cases, they are right. Mr Buck got a couple of misdirected speeding tickets, and a printer got a copyright violation notice. Rather than note all the correctly directed tickets or correctly directed violation notices, Mike chooses to work the exceptions as if they are the rule.
You really do need to step back and understand the underlying themes of Techdirt.
On the post: Parked Car Gets Multiple Speed Camera Tickets
Re: Re: Missing data
Looks pretty darn yellow to me.
On the post: Give A Man A Fish... And Make It Illegal To Teach Fishing
Re: Re: Re:
heck, teach everyone to fish. They can all go fishing, and the economy can suffer because rather than buying fish at the market in 5 minutes on the way home from work, everyone spends half their days trying to catch dinner. In the end, most people don't care to know how to fish anymore, because it is a significant waste of time for them to do it. Anyone who wants to learn is free to do it, just don't steal the fish out of someone elses boat and claim to be a fisherman (rather than a thief).
Opportunity cost is one of those things in business that Mike never likes to talk about.
On the post: Give A Man A Fish... And Make It Illegal To Teach Fishing
Re:
It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
On the post: Court Reduces Award In Jammie Thomas-Rasset Case From $80,000 Per Song To $2,250
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
(smells so bad, that I can smell it over the horrid smell of the gutters in front of thai street food stands)
On the post: Parked Car Gets Multiple Speed Camera Tickets
Re: Re: Missing data
On the post: 'Public' Consultation Over ACTA In Mexico Almost Required NDAs, Blogger Removed For Tweeting
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The 10% number is a study posted by Mike here on Techdirt. You can look around for it. He thought it was off.
The Canadian study Mike so often points to showed that only 20% of online users in Canada had downloaded a file in the previous 30 days, even with a totally passive legal situation that tolerates file sharing.
So sorry, but reality called and set the record straight for you. Even Mike wouldn't be so silly as to use the type of quotes you are pushing.
On the post: Give A Man A Fish... And Make It Illegal To Teach Fishing
Made music isn't the same as teaching someone how to make music. Giving someone an MP3 file of a song isn't the same as teaching them how to play guitar. Nobody is attempting to make music lessons illegal.
This is one of those major stretches of logic, pretty much snapping it completely.
Shouldn't it be:
"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day... expecting the fisherman to give away all his catch every day means no more fishermen"?
you want more music? MAKE YOUR OWN. You want more movies? MAKE YOUR OWN.
On the post: Parked Car Gets Multiple Speed Camera Tickets
Missing data
While it is unfortunate for Mr Buck ( and likely his plate is now tagged in the system for this camera ), I am confident that the vast majority of the tickets issued are valid, and that the presence of such as device (bright yellow and easy to see) has had the desired effects of lowering speed in that particular area.
I guess because mistakes are occasionally made that the entire system should be tossed out, regardless of any positive effects that might happen.
On the post: Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Over Warrantless Wiretapping, Appeal Planned
"The alarming upshot of the court's decision is that so long as the government spies on all Americans, the courts have no power to review or halt such mass surveillance even when it is flatly illegal and unconstitutional," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston
I would have to say that Mr Bankston should probably do a little better groundwork and actually find an individual case to argue. The courts ruled correctly (there is no specific case to argue in front of them). He needs to find a case to argue and then argue it. What was presented here appears to be mostly something that would be put forth as part of a supreme court argument, not a specific case.
The EFF does some really good work, but this is one of those examples where it is just flailing around without a foothold.
On the post: 'Public' Consultation Over ACTA In Mexico Almost Required NDAs, Blogger Removed For Tweeting
Re:
Heck, if you look at the way laws are passed in the US, based on the votes of the house or senate, you would say that 40% or so of the people are always unhappy. In most democracies, consensus is rarely reached, rather the majority of the day passes the laws that the majority of the future will likely not repeal.
If some businesses find themselves on the wrong side of a changing consensus, boo-hoo for them
That changing consensus would depend on the question you ask. If you ask "would you like all music and movies for free all the time", generally the public would quickly answer "hell yeah!". But if you asked "Would you like the current music and movies from hollywood and the big movie companies to disappear and be replaced by cheaper, unknown acts and independant movies, but they would be free" the anwer would be more like "hell no!".
The current "consensus" only exists because for the moment, enough people are still paying for the products to support their production. That consensus would change when those products stop being in the marketplace.
Taken another way, consider the public's twin (and contradictory) desires to both enjoy booze and not get killed while driving. Driving drunk is becoming less and less socially acceptable in part because the public has seen the other end of the scale (when police use to turn a blind eye, never did checkpoints, etc). When presented with their options of unlimited freedom (drink and drive, the sheriff don't mind and he don't work on Saturday night), or restricted freedoms with more of what they like (living longer lives) the tides have turned.
Watch closely. The consensus change you are seeing is only a very small part of a larger and longer trend. You could have taken from the days of moonshining that people didn't want commercially made booze, or preferred bathtub gin to London dry gin, but the longer trend showed that not to be the case. It is helpful to stand back a couple of paces, getting to see more forest and fewer of those trees.
On the post: 'Public' Consultation Over ACTA In Mexico Almost Required NDAs, Blogger Removed For Tweeting
Re: Re:
Speeding is exactly like copyright infringement. The laws for speed are set by the elected officials, and the public the votes with their right foot. They can choose to break the law or not. You can choose to download that file illegally or not. It's the way things go.
The general public is just supposed to pay taxes and allow those tax dollars to be used serve the will of a few against the will of the general public.
Once you start down this road, you sound like a ton foil hatter hard at work. We aren't talking about "against the will of the general public" we are talking about against the will of a small percentage of the general public. hck, one UK study on file trading showed only 10% of people claimed to be file traders. By your own logic, why would 10% of the population be allowed to dictate to the other 90% what they should do? Would you like it if 10% of the people decides that your house was now a crack den, and you didn't get a choice? Perhaps 10% of the people decide you have to be a gay prostitute 2 days a month?
Your logic is just a major fail.
you don't care for the artists nor for the general public, just yourself and your unowed monopoly on everything
I don't really have to go any further than that. I don't work in the music industry, I don't work for hollywood, and I don't produce movie or music content. It isn't MY monopoly (nor is it a monopoly at all!).
In the end, your post is a rant, not a logical discussion. You are the weakest link, goodbye.
On the post: What The IFPI Report Left Out: Its Own Study Showed That File Sharers Do Buy
I have to say that this is one of those deals where if you look at the numbers in one specific way, you can find a way to support the Torrent Freak story. But the 2nd page (of the two page link near the bottom of their story) shows the real truth:
File sharers spend 1/3 less on music than the highest category, "digital music buyers". I can understand there is some confusion, as the categories are not "either or" but rather than people can appear in more than one. It is clear however that those who share music tend to buy less of it (rather than more), even though there are some who do buy music (and are part of digital music buyers).
The real key to understanding the numbers is in the very firsst graph, showing how few file sharing people actually buy physical product. As physical product is still the largest part of the pie (in income), the rest of the story writes itself.
I think the most interesting numbers here are in the Ipod owners, who are not particularly heavy music buyers, but who are typically huge music consumers. Under normal times, someone with a device with 1000+ songs on it would likely have spent thousands of dollars to have such a collection. The numbers reported here show about $150 a year (or less) spent on music, which would mean they would have to spend for about 8 years to have the 1000+ songs on their pod. You would have to think that Ipod owners are likely also some of the most aggressive music sharers out there.
So even when presented with the alternatives, file sharers don't buy anywhere near as much music overall as the general public, which sort of shuts down all the "file sharers are great customers" spiel. It just isn't supported by the numbers, unless you want to ignore 75% of the market first.
On the post: 'Public' Consultation Over ACTA In Mexico Almost Required NDAs, Blogger Removed For Tweeting
Mike, you have been writing techdirt for more than 10 years, and you know that without a doubt, the public has pulled things their way almost exclusively for the last 7 or 8 years. Much of today's "take it, it's free" society is as a result of this massive shift of power away from rights holders and into the hands of the general public. This is why members of the public feel they are the ones to decide what will be put online, what will be made free, and what will be shared without permission.
Being a rights holder is pretty much like being assigned as a second class citizen, as the general public has decision powers over your products.
Much of it happens because of the legal tap dancing around "illegal" torrents and file sharing, particularly the use of harbor countries, variations between laws, and such. What we end up with is various and contradictory rulings, which are difficult to enforce but very easy to use as lubrication for the file sharing culture.
The public isn't invited to be part of the process mostly because the public has already spoken clearly with it's actions, and those actions show a total lack of respect for the concepts of IP and rights. We don't ask drivers who speed to help establish safe speed limits, why ask people who don't respect the current laws to help craft new (and tougher) laws that they won't want to respect either?
On the post: Court Reduces Award In Jammie Thomas-Rasset Case From $80,000 Per Song To $2,250
Re: Re:
Get a life moron.
On the post: Nina Paley vs. Jaron Lanier
Re: Re:
Heck, even concert tickets are artificially scarce, except for the very few acts that can fill a football stadium for a show every night of the year. Otherwise, the scarcity is created artificially by playing a smaller venue then the number of people who desire to see the shows.
In all of this process, there is one very real scarcity that has had it's price, it's market value, and slowly it's underlying value stripped away: Original material.
Artificial scarcity is the magician's flash paper of economics, it takes your eyes away from where the real action happens.
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