Thread: The hypocrite Jolly Roger

Well, on the case of state prosecution, demanding money to avoid being reported is a crime of extortion. Companies could no longer do what some lawyer firms are currently doing. They are able to do it now because there's a loophole for lawsuits. There's no such a thing for state prosecution.

As for companies not seeing a gain in there since they have nothing to gain, that's pretty much the whole idea. Piracy, as I personally look at it, is a public crime. Pirates will pirate from all sorts of industries and all sorts of companies, big or small. Books, music, software, movies, all and from all sorts of copyright holders can exist on the same pirate hard-drive. Meanwhile, their reach is universal, once they directly or indirectly -- through P2P -- share illegal content. As an illegal activity, it has all the ingredients to be classified as a public crime. With the aggravation that generations of youngsters are being educated into a world were copyright infringement for digital content is not legal, but everyone does it and so it's sort-of-ok. In this scenario there is no place for companies to support themselves the costs of lawsuits, neither for them to collect any compensation. This is what we have governments for; It's clearly a sociological problem, a deviant behavior that is becoming too aggressive, before it can even be considered an economic problem. This is particular relevant to small copyright holders who see their lawful rights trampled on a daily basis and cannot support the costs of lawsuits.

As for the state ability to investigate, internet crime is already an area of investigation well developed. I suppose some of these tools could be used. It's a fact that states currently hold the best tools and resources, and are covered by the most amiable laws, to conduct proper investigation. What I don't realistically expect is for this solution to end piracy. But instead to put it into perspective, help reduce its numbers and provide a legal framework that truly protects small copyright holders and middle-man business such as retailers.

you are running under the assumption that everyone is able to purchase their "10" games or what ever per year. the industry makes vcrs and other recordable devices so that you can record stuff off of tv and the radio. you still have to pay for the media be it cassette tapes or vcr tapes or dvdr discs or other msds so you are still supporting the "industry" . those tv shows that are broadcast are copyrighted. as long as you are not selling what you recorded you are not breaking any laws. same with the radio. if you use it for personal use under "fair use" laws you should be ok unless they change the laws.

what i have a hard time understanding is why software is any different. or treated any differently in the eyes of the laws. by being a bata tester you enter a win win situation. you get to play games and give feed back as a service with out having to shell out any money. again you have to purchase the disks or cds or msd the warez are stored on .... still supporting the industry. as i understand as long as you are not selling them you should be ok.

as i understand the crime takes place when money for mass < one or large amounts of > copies is exchanged with out the owners < of the copyright > agreement. thus becoming an unauthorized middle distributer and keeping all the profits.

if you record a tv show off of the tv to watch it later at your convenience and watch it as many times as you want .... how is that any different from downloading a movie file and doing the same thing watching it as many times as you want ? the same movie that plays free over the regular broadcast television anyway ? or a song that plays free on the radio recording it vs downloading it ? for downloading it i am called and labeled a pirate ?

only having dial up i can not down load files that large. meow.

the programmer gets paid by salary or by the hour .... they still get paid eighter way. it is the owners of the company that take the loss. the distributors still get paid for what they ship. even if a cd or dvd is stolen from the store. then that would be the stores loss. back to the owner of the software company.... they still make a huge amount of money.


say the raw cost of a program is $2. the store retails it for $16.99 and they have a sale on that program. you come in and buy 20 copies of the same program at the stores marked down price of $5. you turn around and sell it at the local flee market for $10. you make $5 per copy. how is that any different than the pirate selling each disk for $5 profit ?

if you record a tv show off of the tv to watch it later at your convenience and watch it as many times as you want ....

You're talking about archiving. I'm not certain on it's legal status at all, especially about things like broadcasting programs, but I don't think it's on the right side of the law at the moment. For example, watch American baseball or anything like that, and they'll throw up a message about their copyright. You aren't supposed to archive DVDs or other physical media unless it's music, either. Companies who've provided tools to do exactly that have had their products sued out of existence; see here for an example.

how is that any different from downloading a movie file and doing the same thing watching it as many times as you want ?

The difference is that with downloading a lot of movies off of pirate bay or wherever, you are getting it from a third party who doesn't have the legal right to distribute.

In a perfect world it would be completely OK to archive legal copies.

again you have to purchase the disks or cds or msd the warez are stored on .... still supporting the industry....

You don't suppose that buying supplies means that the revenue goes to different people? How is the market supposed to know your new blank DVD holds a stolen copy of Office as opposed to a home movie or a hard disk image? It just doesn't make sense to pay programmers out of media revenue.

the programmer gets paid by salary or by the hour .... they still get paid eighter way. it is the owners of the company that take the loss.

And then people get laid off.

Originally Posted by kryptkat

no sale. i do not buy that. from all the millions the games make ? if a game did not make much money to begin with that is not the fault of a few pirates. how much money does the average game or movie or other product make anyway ?

Feel free not to buy it: I'm not an entrepreneur and my opinion probably sucks if you analyze it enough. A business experiencing falling income will cut corners to stay in business which can include laying people off. We're not discussing a particular company here. You're suggesting that piracy cannot be a contributing factor to falling income with nothing but conjecture, so I'm free to suggest the opposite with nothing but conjecture. Those companies selling bits, no matter if they make movies or software or something else, only make millions on the point of sale.

still people in the industry. and not buying their supplies they get laid off ?

OK, I'll give you that it's the same industry, but that doesn't change the point. You're conflating what goes on the disk with the disk's manufacturing and marketing. You're suggesting that people who write software can be paid from money made on the sales of those items, when you can make money doing either thing exclusively. They are not the same business, even if they are in the same industry.

if it is being broadcast for free it does not matter to the consumer financially anyway. but morally it does. most of the time.

So to sum up, it matters to the consumer morally and the copyright holder financially.