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Jimmy B wrote:TheGreg wrote:Shakespeare wrote for money, but he didn't rely on copyright and sales of copies. His works were pretty freely copied and reproduced, and yet, somehow, he made a living.
Pretty sure times have changed since then....things cost money more now and shit.
Writing a book certainly doesn't cost any more, making an album not much more for sure. Making a film costs a bit more than putting on a play, although I'm not convinced it's a lot more, regardless, that's not the point. Any industry has to figure out a way to make its product viable in the environment it finds itself, not the one it would like to be in.
Trey wrote:TheGreg wrote:It is invented - for digital media.
No it isn't. It is only distribution that is now easier (and even so, it still isn't free. At least my internet connection and my computer cost money, dunno about yours).
Media creation still requires time and resources in the real world, and your "if it exists then everyone deserves access to it" theory still doesn't account for how these things are generated in the first place.
I'm sorry - I thought you were talking about replicator technology, that allows the virtually free replication of something as many times as you like. Yes, there is a cost of raw materials (drives, bandwidth etc) but the marginal cost of replication is virtually nothing.
I point you again to Shakespeare, and every artist before copyright. If your theory is right, that nothing will be produced without the system we have now, then he would not have written anything.
Teague wrote:Clearly, Shakespeare did not sit around saying 'I'd love to write plays, but since copyright doesn't exist, I can't'.
SHAKESPEARE.
WROTE.
FOR.
MONEY.
Come on man. I'm completely down for all of this if we start by assuming a worldwide socialist agenda, but seriously?
If my ass gets to sleep in a bed tomorrow, I'll work for free. If not, we're stuck with the people who make art not surviving or having the incentive to make it.
Shakespeare wrote for money, but he didn't rely on copyright and sales of copies. His works were pretty freely copied and reproduced, and yet, somehow, he made a living.
Teague wrote:How do our views differ? Several paragraphs, please. I'm tired of chasing down point-by-points. Gimme a philosophy in total to compare to my own.
I think the massive benefit of having the entirety of human science, literature and entertainment freely available to all people to do what they want with far outweighs the short term goal of propping up the hollywood studio system.
Jimmy B wrote:TheGreg wrote:Look, the goal of the project is not to preserve the current system with its current funding levels. I'm not really interested in whether the studio system as it is currently conceived can continue in the 21st century any more than I am in whether the buggy whip industry as it was conceived in the 18th century could continue after the invention of the automobile.
It isn't my job to guarantee that any industry that ever made money can continue regardless of technological advances or social progress. I'm sorry - it's just not.
So you are saying you don't care if movies or music or books stopped getting made because there is no money to sustain the industries as long as you get everything for free?
I think the massive benefit of having the entirety of human science, literature and entertainment freely available to all people to do what they want with far outweighs the short term goal of propping up the hollywood studio system. Yes.
I do not thing that this will result in nothing new being made, any more than I think nothing was created before copyright existed. Clearly, Shakespeare did not sit around saying 'I'd love to write plays, but since copyright doesn't exist, I can't'.
Teague wrote:Yep, I'm out.
EDIT: Dude, just say "look, we're talking about different things, I may have been talking out of my ass in the places where we overlap, I'm sorry," and the conversation continues. But you're completely fucking trolling.
Again, I think you mean 'I can't imagine you really think that.' Likewise. I cannot imagine how you can hold the views you seem to. Except that 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.'
Trey wrote:TheGreg wrote:The benefit to humanity is too great to be held back by a small minded lack of imagination around business models.
To which I say, I'd love to benefit humanity, but right now my rent's due. When Star Trek replicator technology is invented, making energy and resources limitless and allowing us to abandon capitalism at last, we'll talk again.
It is invented - for digital media.
Trey wrote:But if you want to set the right example, then whatever you do to make a living please come to my house and do it for free. Free yourself from those tiresome old business models and show us how that works. Y'know, for humanity. 
Much of my work is actually freely available. If you want me to come to your house, you'll have to pay my daily rate, but if you want to download material I have made available, then be my guest.
Look, the goal of the project is not to preserve the current system with its current funding levels. I'm not really interested in whether the studio system as it is currently conceived can continue in the 21st century any more than I am in whether the buggy whip industry as it was conceived in the 18th century could continue after the invention of the automobile.
It isn't my job to guarantee that any industry that ever made money can continue regardless of technological advances or social progress. I'm sorry - it's just not.
Teague wrote:...seriously, man. The question right now is "the people who make these culturally significant things need to get paid, and only get paid to make them when people pay for it."
Do you have a solution that both makes recognized significant culture free to everyone and also pays to make it?
Well, I think that there are a huge range of potential solutions, none of which will likely replace the current funding model in its present form. They include: Subscriptions models, patronage, donations, government subsidies, media levies, performances (live and screened), merchandise, ads etc. I don't see what is so hard about this.
Jimmy B wrote:I'm sorry, but you think everything should be free? Films? Music? Books?
But how does anything get paid for? How do movie studios or whatever get money to continue paying for other projects? If everything is made for free from now on, the money will eventually run out and studios/music companies/ publishers will eventually go bankrupt then nothing can get made.
If I have misunderstood you, I apologise but that is how I read your 'Absolutely I do' response to Spin's 'So do you believe that all media; music, film, television, should be freely available to everybody?'
I absolutely think that the benefit to humanity of the whole of literature, science, and entertainment being available for free to everyone in the world is so great that it outweighs the complaints of people who cannot possibly get their heads around a business model based on a scarcity that doesn't exist any more.
We have business models that are not based on scarcity now. We've had them in the past, and we've had them in the future. The benefit to humanity is too great to be held back by a small minded lack of imagination around business models.
C-Spin wrote:TheGreg wrote:I see why you don't want to think of the information encoded in an mp3 as information, but I do think that it is. I guess we can differ on that, but the point does seem semantic.
So do you believe that all media; music, film, television, should be freely available to everybody? If so, how do you feel about something like Hulu, where you can watch programs online for free with limited advertisements, or pay a subscription fee and have access to more content? How do you feel about advertisements in general?
Absolutely I do. We're at the stage of civilization where we are able to give everyone in the world access to every work of science, literature, and yes, entertainment, that has ever been created at a marginal cost of nothing at all. Just think of the potential for progress, education, and human happiness. And yet we're so limited in our imagination and creativity that the first thing that we try to do having created this miracle is to try desperately to re-invent scarcity.
That makes me very sad, and a little depressed about human nature.
Eddie wrote:But again, I think the kernel here that we can all zero in on, is the Greg champions the free exchange of information whereas I think the rest of us do not categorize movies, music, etc as information. This is what I was trying to get at. Lincoln is a great movie based in truth, but it is not information. It's media, it's art, it's cinema, it's entertainment, yes. But Information? That's a bit reductive, no?
I see why you don't want to think of the information encoded in an mp3 as information, but I do think that it is. I guess we can differ on that, but the point does seem semantic.
C-Spin wrote:TheGreg wrote:The point is that the legal system has different laws against theft and piracy.
Your argument is like saying 'there are laws against theft and rape, therefore theft is rape.'
Well, I said in that same post why I think it morally fits any definition of theft. And I know the studios that lobbied for the laws consider it theft (*generic rock music*YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR!!!"). I'm not familiar with the wording used in any of these laws, feel free to clue me in with some cited examples and I'll concede the point.
Unfortunately from Wikipedia - but you'll get the drift:
"Courts have distinguished between copyright infringement and theft holding, for instance, in the United States Supreme Court case Dowling v. United States (1985), that bootleg phonorecords did not constitute stolen property and that "interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: '[...] an infringer of the copyright.'" The court said that in the case of copyright infringement, the province guaranteed to the copyright holder by copyright law—certain exclusive rights—is invaded, but no control, physical or otherwise, is taken over the copyright, nor is the copyright holder wholly deprived of using the copyrighted work or exercising the exclusive rights held."
Dorkman wrote:TheGreg wrote:I'm sorry that people in 'the industry' are wound up
No you're not.
I am a little bit.
Teague wrote:Well, hold up.
Is your argument entirely a semantic one?
Downloading MP3s and movies outside of the contracts through you which you can do that legally is a crime, so doing so is illegal, end of story. Whether or not it should be a crime is what we're discussing, right?
My point really is not about downloading movies, but about the collateral damage to society of a system that values a studio's right to a business model over the public benefit of free exchange of information. In a digital age the massive problems created by trying to restrict the promise of digital exchange of human knowledge are so huge as to outweigh any single industries objections.
Teague wrote:Well, hold up.
Is your argument entirely a semantic one?
Downloading MP3s and movies outside of the contracts through you which you can do that legally is a crime, so doing so is illegal, end of story. Whether or not it should be a crime is what we're discussing, right?
I'm not sure it's entirely semantic, but I agree that in many jurisdictions what you describe is either a crime or a civil offense. I'm not sure it's straightforward though, since there are many exceptions and grey areas.
Whether or not it should be is a huge area, which we have also strayed into, and is in many ways the more interesting discussion, since it highlights very different visions of the future.
Kyle wrote:And copyright infringement is a legal way of describing the theft of intellectual content. Which you would know if you'd taken those intro to law classes you're talking about.
Once more I have to point out that this is simply not true. Please, if you don't believe me, pull up the laws against copyright infringement, and find me the references to theft, or anything that they have in common with 'theft' related laws. Copyright infringement is not theft, because nothing is being stolen. Media pirates are not charged with theft, because they don't commit theft (except perhaps incidentally).
Dave wrote:Greg, I think you're trolling. You're not considering counter-arguments, and keep repeating the same points.
You've had 4 pages of winding people who work in the industry up, well played.
It's now time for distraction kitty.
Daaaw, look at his fuzzy little paws!
I'm not certain, but I think for you 'trolling' means 'making an argument I disagree with so much I can't even understand how someone could make it in good faith.'
I end up keeping making a lot of the same arguments because the same arguments keep being made to me again and again. For example, I have made the point that copyright infringement is not theft (at least in the eyes of the legal system, and the dictionary) three times. Because the same fallacy keeps being brought up. I can't really help that. I have tried to respond to, and consider, reasonable arguments where they are made.
I'm sorry that people in 'the industry' are wound up by an issue that deeply affects the industry, but that's not really surprising, nor something that can be endlessly avoided.
C-Spin wrote:TheGreg wrote:Well, I'm sorry, but the definition I am using is the one in use by the legal system. Please feel free to make up your own, but it's going to make it difficult for you to communicate with others who are using the normal definitions of words. Taking something so that someone else doesn't have it any more is theft. Making an exact copy is not theft.
Okay... First of all, we've already agreed that the legal system has laws against piracy. So obviously your definition is not the same as the one in use by the legal system, or you would consider piracy stealing too.
The point is that the legal system has different laws against theft and piracy.
Your argument is like saying 'there are laws against theft and rape, therefore theft is rape.'
Kyle wrote:TheGreg wrote:C-Spin wrote:You can say torrenting something isn't stealing because you're not taking it away from anybody, or you would never have paid for it anyway, but it's a form of stealing.
No. Let's deal with this again. Stealing is where I take something, and you don't have it any more. Copying is where I make an exact copy, and you are completely unaffected.
Dude, own up to it. Stealing is when you aquire something that belongs to someone else without paying for it and without their permission.
No. No it's not. I don't know where you got this bizarre idea. You should take some intro to law classes, or something.
Kyle wrote:Watch this carefully please: I, Kyle, steal content because I can't afford it and want it and it's readily available. Bam.
You mean that when you made your copy you deleted the one from the server of the place you took it? I guess that would be theft, otherwise it's copying, which may or may not be copyright infringement.
Kyle wrote:It's stealing, and arguments like yours have been around for decades to justify shoplifting, smuggling, and various other "real" crimes. Just own up to it and stop trying to sooth your soul by arguing against people whose livelihoods are affected by it about how it's okay.
Shoplifting - the shop owner does not have the item. If I go into a store, see an item I like, go home and make an exact copy of it, that is not shoplifting.
Likewise all the other ones. Please stop propagating this nonsense.
C-Spin wrote:TheGreg wrote:No. Let's deal with this again. Stealing is where I take something, and you don't have it any more. Copying is where I make an exact copy, and you are completely unaffected.
That's a narrow definition of stealing to suit your argument. You are taking a product that you haven't paid for and haven't any right to possess. That is theft. It doesn't matter that there are an unlimited number of copies and you aren't depriving anybody of something by your act of theft.
Well, I'm sorry, but the definition I am using is the one in use by the legal system. Please feel free to make up your own, but it's going to make it difficult for you to communicate with others who are using the normal definitions of words. Taking something so that someone else doesn't have it any more is theft. Making an exact copy is not theft.
TheGreg wrote:Yes, there are. That doesn't mean there should be.
C-Spin wrote:That's an entirely different debate.
Yes. Yes it is.
TheGreg wrote:Yes, it would be like CocaCola trying to sell bottled water when the same product was available for free in every building in America. Impossible.
C-Spin wrote:First of all, I never said impossible. I just said it would be different, and it unquestionably would be. Second of all, you're arguing with an example that has a relationship to this topic that is so far from 1:1. Not everybody has good tap water at home. I happen to, so I almost never buy bottled water. Sometimes you're somewhere like a ball-park and it's hot and you want some water, but there are no water fountains or... creeks or whatever nearby. So you go to a vendor and buy a bottled water because of the need and the convenience. That is NEVER going to happen with MP3s. If studios are offering both options, you'll never not have access to your free MP3 website and have to go swing by iTunes instead to purchase a song you need right now. Because if you have internet access at all you have access to the WHOLE internet.
I realize the analogy is not one to one - I simply offer it up as an example of a company that makes money offering a product that is not scarce. And they do it without accusing people with piped water in their house of theft, and without trying to shut down municipal water systems.
I buy music from iTunes because it is convenient. I could pirate it, but iTunes actually adds value for me. That's the way forward for anyone distributing something that is not scarce any more. You can't recreate scarcity. Nor should you.
I don't disagree - it's clear that the designer is not adding enough value for the client to want to pay.
Eddie wrote:TheGreg wrote:I, for one, will be ordering one!
And you'll complain the entire time they should be for free.
Not at all, but I might look at them, and, at my own expense, make an exact copy for personal use!
I, for one, will be ordering one!
C-Spin wrote:You can say torrenting something isn't stealing because you're not taking it away from anybody, or you would never have paid for it anyway, but it's a form of stealing.
No. Let's deal with this again. Stealing is where I take something, and you don't have it any more. Copying is where I make an exact copy, and you are completely unaffected.
C-Spin wrote:And there ARE laws against this particular variety, even if they aren't strictly enforced.
Yes, there are. That doesn't mean there should be.
C-Spin wrote: That's a big part of the reason why places like Apple can still sell MP3s.
If every MP3 that you could buy on iTunes was conveniently available for free somewhere else on the internet, I'm sure you'd be seeing a much different story.
Yes, it would be like CocaCola trying to sell bottled water when the same product was available for free in every building in America. Impossible.
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