SOPA

[MeGusta]

My point is that the content owners do not have to change the law. Ddrak and myself both agree that their are laws that already protect content owners.

There is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater and eliminate due process protections.

SOPA is a non starter for a non issue.

[Taxious]

http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay- ... es-111130/

[Freecare Spiritwise]

@Tax: Under SOPA that plugin is illegal. But they better have a good diversion when they kick down my door because once I power my shit off those fuckers will need super-computers to crack my open source encryption. My shit is tighter than my 10th grade girlfriend. So pass SOPA or don't pass SOPA it's all the same to me.

One good thing that has come out of all this is that the big nerdy mega-companies with just as much money as Hollywood who were sitting on the sidelines are no longer on the sidelines. It's not just Hollywood vs. Google any more. It's Hollywood vs. virtually the entire tech community. Minus a couple shills of course

It's certainly getting more interesting. The other day the attorney general called for Americans to turn each other in to the FBI for downloading movies. So now they're putting downloading a movie on equal footing with terrorism. I'm sure that will help the government's overlords squeeze a few extra dollars out of people. Hollywood has been decimated ya know. Oh, wait... Unversal Studios paid their CEO, what, 85 million last year? But Kulaf feels bad that they are starving so he was probably first in line to report us to the FBI lol.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

And for the record, I doubt anyone here has given as many of their dollars to Hollywood as I have. For few years I was rich, I was spending $1000-$2000 a week just on store bought DVDs at least. Since I'm no longer rich and actually care about the value I get for my money, I find it unacceptable that the quality of product I get for free is completely superior in every way to the one Hollywood wants to sell me. Other than maybe banking or wireless, not a lot of companies can ask me to pay more money for less quality and still expect me to be their customer.

How many minutes of manditory commercials is a store bought DVD up to these days?
And walking through the aisles of the DVD section of a store, what's the average quality of a movie now compared to say, 10 years ago? 5 years ago?

Maybe some day Hollywood will give me a product I'd be willing to pay for consistently. Or maybe as a customer they've alienated me for life. I haven't decided yet. I don't tell my family no when they want me to take them to see Harry Potter at the movie theater. I don't tell my wife she can't have cable TV either. But wherever it is reasonable in my life to deny those bloodsuckers my money, I do it. I give them my money and they say "where's the rest, criminal?" Not the basis in my mind for a healthy business relationship.

[Embar Angylwrath]

While I respect your opinions Free, I must disagree with the context.

You can't talk about a healthy business relationship if you consider stealing a perfectly acceptable alternative to modify the business relationship. Extend that outlook to grocery stores (fuck 'em, they don't offer what I want on my terms so Im ok with stealing it) or employer-employee (fuck them, they don't produce on my terms, so Im justified in shorting them hours) and you may get my meaning.

[Kulaf]

Since I'm no longer rich and actually care about the value I get for my money, I find it unacceptable that the quality of product I get for free is completely superior in every way to the one Hollywood wants to sell me.

What are you getting for free that is "superior" to what they want to sell? What you are getting is a free rip of their product that you are downloading. How is that "superior" other than the fact that you are stealing it and getting it for nothing. And if it is not valuable to you.......why do you want it?

[Ddrak]

Since I'm no longer rich and actually care about the value I get for my money, I find it unacceptable that the quality of product I get for free is completely superior in every way to the one Hollywood wants to sell me.

What are you getting for free that is "superior" to what they want to sell? What you are getting is a free rip of their product that you are downloading. How is that "superior" other than the fact that you are stealing it and getting it for nothing. And if it is not valuable to you.......why do you want it?

It's absolutely superior because:

1. You aren't forced to sit through advertisements, FBI warnings, slow-loading menu systems and other idiocy.
2. It isn't DRM encumbered so you have to use specialist tools to transfer it to whatever format you want to use to view it (eg streaming via set-top-box).

Both of these seriously turn me off buying Blu-Rays. I want to have my movie collection on my PC and stream it to my TV, iPad or Android Phone. Why do the studios make that virtually impossible?

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

While I respect your opinions Free, I must disagree with the context.

You can't talk about a healthy business relationship if you consider stealing a perfectly acceptable alternative to modify the business relationship. Extend that outlook to grocery stores (fuck 'em, they don't offer what I want on my terms so Im ok with stealing it) or employer-employee (fuck them, they don't produce on my terms, so Im justified in shorting them hours) and you may get my meaning.

Copying is not theft. That's our real disagreement. But maybe I should have said "consumer relationship" since I don't work for Hollywood. There's no contract between Hollywood and myself or even a gentlemen's agreement. So I'm not sure your comparison applies (at least in my mind) to the point I was making. And I agree with what you said about business relationships.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Since I'm no longer rich and actually care about the value I get for my money, I find it unacceptable that the quality of product I get for free is completely superior in every way to the one Hollywood wants to sell me.

What are you getting for free that is "superior" to what they want to sell? What you are getting is a free rip of their product that you are downloading. How is that "superior" other than the fact that you are stealing it and getting it for nothing. And if it is not valuable to you.......why do you want it?

What if you bought a car, but before you could drive it every morning you had to listen to 20 minutes of the car trying to sell you car accessories? What if you bought a car, but the car wouldn't let you loan it to a friend? Sure, the car would let your friend drive it if he bought his own license for that car, but that's probably not what you want. What if you bought a car, but it would initially only let you drive to Blockbuster Video? You had to keep paying more money to unlock more destinations. What if after you bought the car they offered some cool new accessory for that car, like floormats, but to get that accessory you had to buy a whole new car?

These are the kinds of things that Hollywood is doing to its customers.While every other industry (even ones I hate like banking and wireless) is using new technology to empower their consumers with new features and flexibility, Hollywood is using technology (in complete vain, which is the irony here) to restrict what we can do with their products. And rather than taking the fact that a good number of their customers are bypassing their restrictions as a mandate to remove those restrictions and give them a better product, they are running to congress and telling everyone the world of content will end if they are not allowed to continue those restrictions, basically at gunpoint. Even though they had a record year. Even though there is conclusive proof that people will pay for content if you package it up in a way they want. Give their customers what they want? Why the fuck would they do that if they can frame the issue as part of the fight against terrorism and have DHS kick people's doors down to keep those restrictions forced on people? Why would they embrace change when they have enough money to buy the policitians and enforce the status quo?

[Freecare Spiritwise]

and you may get my meaning.

Wait ... is there some business related beef between us? I like to think that if/when that's the case then people will tell me. But in a 20+ year career I've found that isn't always the case...

[Lurker]

Copying is not theft. That's our real disagreement. But maybe I should have said "consumer relationship" since I don't work for Hollywood. There's no contract between Hollywood and myself or even a gentlemen's agreement.

You don't seem to understand how copyright law works. You entering into a contract isn't required for the owner of the material to enforce their legal rights.

And your car analogy sucks. When you loan your car to someone you no longer have access to the car. When you loan a DVD to someone you no longer have access to the DVD. Nobody is loaning anything when you steal copyrighted material by copying it illegally.

I can understand if you want to rationalize or justify the theft, but it's so obvious from a legal standpoint that what you are doing is stealing. You steal the material because you think the legal owner is abusing their customers and that as a result you are entitled to it for free. Just admit that.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Copying is not theft. That's our real disagreement. But maybe I should have said "consumer relationship" since I don't work for Hollywood. There's no contract between Hollywood and myself or even a gentlemen's agreement.

You don't seem to understand how copyright law works. You entering into a contract isn't required for the owner of the material to enforce their legal rights.

And your car analogy sucks. When you loan your car to someone you no longer have access to the car. When you loan a DVD to someone you no longer have access to the DVD. Nobody is loaning anything when you steal copyrighted material by copying it illegally.

I can understand if you want to rationalize or justify the theft, but it's so obvious from a legal standpoint that what you are doing is stealing. You steal the material because you think the legal owner is abusing their customers and that as a result you are entitled to it for free. Just admit that.

I can understand you want to create theft where there is none in a misguided effort to prop up an obsolete business model. But that model is going to fail, and that's the real issue here. All the king's horses and all the king's men won't put the genie back in the bottle. Hollywood couldn't stop the TV, so in the end they embraced it and came out ahead. Hollywood couldn't stop the VCR, so in the end they embraced it and came out ahead. Maybe someday they will embrace the internet and we'll all be winners. Until then, you're not going to convince me I'm a criminal. And if you really feel that way you should follow your conscience and report me to the local authorites. Oh wait, the law (currently) considers infringement a civil matter, totally unlike real theft.

Well that's all the time I have for today. I didn't figure this would be very constructive (name a single constructive thread in this whole section) but I said my peace anyway, and for that I am flame bait lol. You guys now "have the con."

[Lurker]

Until then, you're not going to convince me I'm a criminal. And if you really feel that way you should follow your conscience and report me to the local authorites. Oh wait, the law (currently) considers infringement a civil matter, totally unlike real theft.

Thank you for admitting that you are violating the law. As you said, the law considers your illegal use of copyrighted material a civil court issue. Just because your infringement doesn't reach a criminal level subject to jail time doesn't mean you aren't breaking the law. You've rationalized your illegal activity (Hollywood made you do it with forced advertisements!) but that doesn't make the activity less illegal.

Now by all means, come up with more "what if's" or shots at the forum.

[Taxious]

Where are you reading that he claims he's not breaking the law? He's just saying he doesn't agree with it..

[Lurker]

Well, he said "copying is not theft" and said "there's no contract between Hollywood and myself". I take that to mean he thinks he is not breaking the law. If he knows he's breaking the law than he should just say that and give his rationalization/justification like I asked.

[Embar Angylwrath]

and you may get my meaning.

Wait ... is there some business related beef between us? I like to think that if/when that's the case then people will tell me. But in a 20+ year career I've found that isn't always the case...

No Free, no beef at all.

[MeGusta]

As you said, the law considers your illegal use of copyrighted material a civil court issue. Just because your infringement doesn't reach a criminal level subject to jail time doesn't mean you aren't breaking the law. You've rationalized your illegal activity (Hollywood made you do it with forced advertisements!) but that doesn't make the activity less illegal.

This is correct.

[MeGusta]

I think we have gotten off on a tangent here about the morality or legality of copyright infringement. Let's get back to why SOPA is bad law.

SOPA makes possible government-mandated DNS filtering, which effectively "de-lists" the offending site from search engines, navigating to the URL, etc. Basically, unless you navigate directly to the site's IP address, it no longer exists.

Specifically, SOPA spells out offenses that warrant this action; most notably, copyright-infringing content existing on the site. If a site is accused of having copyrighted content on it, or even linking to copyrighted content, it can (and will) be de-listed/blacklisted.

What makes this so bad is that pretty much every social media/user-generated content site would be in violation of it. That includes Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Wikipedia, etc. etc.

This violates the concept of due process.

It's also the exact same approach that countries like China and Iran use to censor the internet for their citizens. If your government is taking policy direction from China and Iran, that's a bad thing.

Additionally, there are already bills in place to combat copyright infringement online, and they actually do a pretty good job. There's a reason why virtually every site that trades in infringement operates offshore.

Frankly, I don't think politicians particularly care about those pitfalls, though. The only issues that they might care about are:

1) SOPA will drive illegal sites further underground and offshore. This will provide all the necessary incentive (and then some) for a real alternative to the traditional, US-centric DNS system. The fact that the internet, in a very real sense, goes "through" America is an advantage that is maintained largely because there isn't a whole lot of reason for outsiders to change it. SOPA provides that incentive.

2) SOPA will murder large segments of the tech startup space. Any website that allows for user participation, even something as simple as comments, inevitably will violate SOPA, and, lacking due process, will be subject to blacklisting. That includes Brell Rants. All it takes is one user comment that links to copyrighted material. Essentially, everyone's guilty, so the government has free reign to blacklist whoever it wants whenever it wants.

Is there anyone here who cares to attempt to defend SOPA?

[Freecare Spiritwise]

@Embar: Ok, sweet, and thanks. Business relationships aren't something I screw around with. The customer is always right. It's not just some BS in 14 point font on my pencil holder - it's what I live by.

Also, some here I think are confusing civil law with criminal law. It is not a criminal offense to download a movie for your own personal enjoyment in the privacy of your own home. And in many cases it's even considered fair use. I think maybe in this one case that it is not I who is confused about the law. And for the record I am absolutely against anyone making so much as a dime of profit off of copying somebody else's work, though I obviously have no problem with someone drinking from the spigot themselves

...but for the day it does become a criminal offense...

"There are just laws and there are unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that an unjust law is no law at all... One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly...I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law."

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Here is what I would be willing to pay for a product that currently doesn't exist. Currently I am paying something like 50 bucks a month for basic cable and there's maybe 3 TV shows we watch. A total ripoff but it's what the missus wants.

I would pay $50 a month to have pretty much any movie in existence at my fingertips for any device at any time.As movies become upgraded in resolution or new box sets come out or whatever, I get it all with no funny games or bullshit. That I believe is fair considering that 75% of all the movies in the last 5 years have been not worth paying for. No bullshit forcing me to watch commercials either unless the service is free. If I pay for it then I'm not watching commercials. No double dipping. Take my money or take the advertisers money. They no longer get both.

I would pay an extra $20 for that to include first run movies.
I would pay an extra $20 for that to include all TV shows in existence.
I would pay an extra $10 for that to include all music.

So let's say a nice even $100 a month for all possible entertainment media at my fingertips at any time, at any place and on any device. And I think that is totally generous. But I wouldn't want any entertainment executives to fall out of their bathtubs and not land on Italian marble.