The Filesharing Conspiracy

Originally posted by rick1
reply to post by debunky

 

Be a little more helpful. What post of mine are responding to. Or am I just not seeing it?

Sure:

Musicians or songwriters did not put their work in the public for free they put it their for sale and it is protected by copyright. They own it and it is their PERSONAL PROPERTY just as your home is yours pal. Just as your car is yours the song I wrote yesterday is mine in the exact same way. You just for whatever reason can't get it or refuse to deal with reality. When I distribute my music for sale I am placing my private property up for sale.

Edit to add:
Thing is, you cant compare digital data to other goods, because for digital data the marginal cost of production is 0. You can only compare it to other goods whose marginal cost of production is 0. AFAIK there are no other such goods.

[edit on 28-6-2010 by debunky]

reply to post by rick1


nor did I personally steal mine,
but it is still referred to as 'stolen land'.
I could have made the same point with something different, but I chose the stolen land issue as its controversial & complicated like this file sharing debate.

and perhaps you didn't realise that was directed at someone else? and besides what about the loaf of bread hypothetical...don't hear you objecting to that scenario....

I am still bowing out of this though...

P.L.U.R.I
-B.M

P.S) debunky's post above is spot on IMHO...

[edit on 28/6/10 by B.Morrison]

'Identity ecosystem' to replace passwords, draft strategy suggests

Well then after reading all the posts I support the big bad businesses. I'll have a drink to celebrate the destruction of all the torrent sites.

torrentfreak.com...

... while I congratulate spain on their brilliant strategy to earn lots and lots of foreign currency

Originally posted by TylerKing

Click here for more information.

Damn I know that was directed at me, but I missed all the excitement.



Anyways, as Debunky is pointing out, there's a big difference between something you can make once, and then copy almost instantly, indefinitely... and something you have to spend hours or days or weeks trying to reproduce. In all of your hardliner absolutist greedy bling bling obsessionism you're treating them as one in the same.

As someone who both creates video and composes music, and as one who in my day job actually creates and build things, totally unrelated but involving some aspects of art, with my mind and my hands and my array of tools and materials and parts, I think I can speak up here.

If I make an audio track in a hour or a week, once I have it I can 'instantly' copy it over and over again. But when I spend days or even weeks building a totally custom high end machine, when I 'unleash' it into the world few would be able to do much better producing it any faster than I did. It would take about 10 people roughly as skilled and equipped as I am to be able to COPY it 10 times faster.

Now if I have a patent on something I invented, of course I wont like it if someone else not only copies it but also makes profits with it that cut into mine. But if some kids saw the design, and had the skills to build something extremely similar for themselves based completely on my design, sure I'd be out ONE sale, but if anything I'd be impressed with their motivation and their own touch of creativity they used in making theirs. I definitely wouldn't be able to sue them just because they reproduced it, if they didn't make profits with it.

This is something you clearly have no concept of whatsoever. In your quest for bling bling rap MTV gold chain 20" spinner rims mega-profits, it doesn't seem like you've ever built much with your hands. You (don't) know, things that cannot be copied instantly or burned onto a $.10 disk media in 3 minutes.

If you spend 4 days making an Expressionist oil painting, and then someone takes that very painting. That is physical THEFT. But the lines DO blur when you scan that painting and put it on the web where it can be instantly copied and pasted into peoples NON-PROFIT blogs about Expressionist art. I guess to you that is theft, but not to the most of the web culture.


PURE Art made entirely for profits usually doesn't go down in history so well. Call it what you may, but the works of most artists in history weren't worth much until long after they died. But you saw those kids on MTV wearing gold chains wit' all dem dancah's and you want your slice NOW. Dig, yo.

[edit on 28-6-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

reply to post by Skyfloating


I didn't read the whole thread, just commenting on the OP. Very well thought out thread. I agree with you on all of it. I do think it is a conspiracy to devalue our creativity and individuality. This would make us less inclined to be creative. That is why, as you said, creativity that can be used for thw war-machine is worth more than aesthetic creativity. It also has its place in making us all criminals, like you said. This will make us more subject to authority because they have something to hold over our heads. Great piece OP.

Originally posted by dbloch7986
reply to post by Skyfloating

 

I didn't read the whole thread, just commenting on the OP. Very well thought out thread. I agree with you on all of it. I do think it is a conspiracy to devalue our creativity and individuality. This would make us less inclined to be creative. That is why, as you said, creativity that can be used for thw war-machine is worth more than aesthetic creativity. It also has its place in making us all criminals, like you said. This will make us more subject to authority because they have something to hold over our heads. Great piece OP.

Quite the contrary:
As I pointed out, marginal cost of production is 0
Now, there is an initial investment,
Your best tactic to make money is to minimize that investment and produce as many copies as possible!
Result: 10 Hollywood Blockbusters a year, shown world wide.

Originally posted by Skyfloating

great read!

I agree with a lot of your points. I think at first it was like, "well they are charging so much so i am going to download it to stick it to the man!"

Now though we can get everything for $0 so people just download everything. I am sure we are all guilty of it to some degree. I still buy CDs too, but with ipods and computer files being the norm you really dont need them or a cd player for that matter.

I have one question though...

I have a few musical pursuits of my own and i was wondering something about your musician friend. You said he can pack a room of 200 people.. but he makes less than $20 a month? Did he make nothing off the concerts?

Im not asking this because i think your lying or anything, i just want to know for my own reference how he was making no money whatsoever while having so many fans(although 3000 isnt anywhere close to the famous musicians out there, you're still right thats enough to get you started on a nice career).

Originally posted by Skyfloating

Originally posted by Danbonesgetting asked to play and getting free beers put on my table- priceless

But it wouldnt be bad to be able to make a living from music, would it? I hate seeing talented people driving cabs and working as waiters.

LOL, thanks for this great thread, SkyFloating. As a writer/artist, I cannot thank you enough for bringing the other side of creativity and marketing to light.

Artists today are realistic, first and foremost, but truly, when people see them waiting tables, etc., often the assumption is "if you had real talent, why are you waiting tables?"

The talent they inevitably encounter in these people is not convincing because of simple capitalistic dogma (not knocking capitalism, I love it).

You know, the realization that we veer away from: Talented people can and do have to do "other things" to pay the bills, not from a lack of initiative or talent, but from sheer lack of appreciation or financial reward for their labors.

As a result, true artists (of all kinds) tend to be two things: committed beyond thought of financial reward, that way they can stay in the game and keep creating, and also slightly hardened, cynical, or even bitter, which unfortunately can stop the whole process, though enough principle and frustration will often provoke them to upturn their lives and "create" a different way for themselves.

So, they must add entrepreneurial skills to their talents, as well. Not a bad thing, but bad in the way that it gives one hope that a financially-solvent situation will emerge with enough sacrifice and hard work, with enough belief and giving.

Argh. When the world looks around for truly profound and valuable pieces of music, art, and literature to define ourselves, there will be none. And we now have a better grasp on why that is.

Thanks again for the great posting.

The realest and most special talents I know keep the good stuff all to themselves. It never sees the "mainstream" light of day, and that's because it belongs to the ones who made it. It's not the public's "right" to have it or enjoy it, unless the artist is giving it to the world or it is stolen.

Our works do not belong to the world. They belong to us and it's our option to keep them to ourselves. If the world cannot make it financially lucrative in any way, why should we give our treasures to them?

We don't exist to serve the public. That's a choice made often by kindhearted, generous, and altruistic people who create beautiful and significant things that move or are of value to others, and then share them one way or another.

Click here for more information.

It's legal in spain (See above)
If you use things like DDL, streaming sites (No upload) its legal to own, and get copyrighted material pretty much worldwide.

I used to work as a journalist once, and one day found a funny press release on my table: A Microsoft sponsored organisation was informing that most companies are "Underlicensed" It was all very polite, with a "Can happen" undertone to it, and offering a "License check service" for free!
Its funny how the tone changes when they are facing customers who can afford lawyers...

Originally posted by debunky
It's legal in spain (See above)
If you use things like DDL, streaming sites (No upload) its legal to own, and get copyrighted material pretty much worldwide.

I used to work as a journalist once, and one day found a funny press release on my table: A Microsoft sponsored organisation was informing that most companies are "Underlicensed" It was all very polite, with a "Can happen" undertone to it, and offering a "License check service" for free!
Its funny how the tone changes when they are facing customers who can afford lawyers...

Oh, are you replying to my post? It's illegal in my country, and I'm betting yours too. I don't live in Spain, do you? Otherwise your argument, like all of them have been, remains invalid.

Originally posted by TylerKing

Originally posted by debunky
It's legal in spain (See above)
If you use things like DDL, streaming sites (No upload) its legal to own, and get copyrighted material pretty much worldwide.

I used to work as a journalist once, and one day found a funny press release on my table: A Microsoft sponsored organisation was informing that most companies are "Underlicensed" It was all very polite, with a "Can happen" undertone to it, and offering a "License check service" for free!
Its funny how the tone changes when they are facing customers who can afford lawyers...

Oh, are you replying to my post? It's illegal in my country, and I'm betting yours too. I don't live in Spain, do you? Otherwise your argument, like all of them have been, remains invalid.

Do you know what a bibliophiliac means when he talks about an "Irish Edition"?
English printers in the 18th century managed to get the "statute of anne", generally considered to be the first copyright law.
Irish and scottish printers couldnt care less, bought books in london, reprinted them in dublin and ... not sure where in scottland, would have to look that up, and smuggled them to england.
This is what later led to the berne convention, because copyright laws need to be globalized in a globalized economy, or they are as strong as their weakest link.

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
one killer question :

what is the income source for a creator of open source content ?

I see no-one addressed this, so I will add some thoughts on this.

Some people do still make money from open source software, mostly as a service industry.

Most companies still need people to maintain, bugfix, improve, customize, install and so on.

So, for an example. Company X starts using some open source software. They probably will hire a tech guy to help them get it set up. Also, they may want some customization to suit their business better. This customization may not be something that the 'community' is interested in, so the company may well hire someone to do that work for them. It makes sense if you do this, to hire one of the guys who wrote it.

One big example of this is Ubuntu. Mark Shuttleworth, the head honcho, is a classic venture capitalist, and businessman. In part he may be doing this for personal or ethical reasons, but it's not all altruism. His company Cannonical also sells things like service contracts. You could do that work yourself, or hire anyone you like to do it, but it makes sense to hire his company, as they are the ones who should have the most overview and knowledge of the system.

Personally, I have dabbled in these areas, but mostly I make my money from a pretty regular 9-5 job. I consider my Music and Programming to be an artistic hobby, something which gives me more satisfaction than regular jobs. It's kind of nice to know that my music has given a few thousand people some joy, and my programming has given a few tens of thousands of people joy/utility. I'm not in this for the money, I'm in it for other reasons, although I have had a few donations at times. To me, it's an obsession of sorts, I have to make music, I have to program, if I made a little money at times, that's nice, but it's not the goal. The goal is to do something to give people entertainment, to satisfy my problem solving addiction, to advance the state of software, and do it in a manner that fits my personal ethics.

Originally posted by InfaRedMan
Piracy... It's far from being a digital age phenomenon. When I was growing up in the 70's, everyone was copying their friends vinyl with audio tapes. In the 80's everyone was copying videos and television with video recorders. How about bootlegs (illegal recordings)? They've been around for decades!

All these patterns were in-grained before the digital age.

I freely admit that I download Mp3's - but only for the sake of previewing an an artists work. If I don't like it, I trash it. If I like it, I go out and buy it from a retail store or amazon every time.

Because my musical tastes are obscure, I often cannot find said artists/music in regular stores to even listen to them so I have no guilt about what I do. IMHO, the torrent I downloaded just made the artist money because more often than not, I will like it and buy it.

IMHO, there is nothing wrong with road testing something. If you buy a car, you get to drive it first, if you buy a house, you get to walk through it, if you buy a television, you can watch it in the store and compare it against competing brands. Try before you buy is cool with me. Just so long as you use it for those purposes.

IRM

Calvinism is a sick puppy.
Put it to bed already.
You have a right to all the music.
Not just what a pauper could afford.

Actually most if not all "pirate sites", provide a statement "IF you like the product, SUPPORT the company and purchase it". So how does it work... brilliantly I think... if "I" have the money to spend on these type of things, "education (books), entertainment (Games, movies, music, software (work related)" then I will be more then glad to pay, because I do want to support the creators, as I am one of those creators at my workplace. BUT, if our product sucks, then why should I be paid?!

Simply because I got marketed better, with more capitalistic sponsorship (ie; iPad)? because I have the monopoly (Microsoft)? NO, WE the people should always be supporting the "small" companies and not support capitalism as it is destructive to our world and people around the world. So if I were to buy this book the actually writer gets about %5 of the money I"m paying... so I'm actually NOT supporting them much, if it was direct contribution to the source, I would be all for it.

FYI, I have purchased many products that I can get for FREE, after trying them out and wanting to support the companies, but if I don't have the money to spare, what's so wrong with "sharing" this wealth of information that can be used for education, work or entertainment?

I personally would be more then glad to pay for most (if I can afford it) and share it with those that Can't afford it? Why should all the rich have the privileged and NOT the poor? THIS is the fundamental problem with copyrights, it is NOT designed for the people, it is designed for massive corporations and I for one refuse to support these capitalistic that STEAL from the geniuses that create this, or the sweat shops used to build them, or the people that we never heard of had to suffer for it's creation, then they 10x the price and sell it to us... don't you see something is WRONG here?

Originally posted by harpsounds
Personally, I have dabbled in these areas, but mostly I make my money from a pretty regular 9-5 job. I consider my Music and Programming to be an artistic hobby, something which gives me more satisfaction than regular jobs. It's kind of nice to know that my music has given a few thousand people some joy, and my programming has given a few tens of thousands of people joy/utility. I'm not in this for the money, I'm in it for other reasons, although I have had a few donations at times. To me, it's an obsession of sorts, I have to make music, I have to program, if I made a little money at times, that's nice, but it's not the goal. The goal is to do something to give people entertainment, to satisfy my problem solving addiction, to advance the state of software, and do it in a manner that fits my personal ethics.

Exactly the same here! I once payed the roof over my head with my "creativity", as a journalist, but found that I just couldnt stand the extensive brownnosing.
Today my income is from a fairly non creative position, and all excess creativity flows into a little computer game, I give away for free. Actually I could have produced the exact same game 25 years ago. (Its not very hardware intensive) But It would have been quite an effort to get 100 People to play it! I would have had to put ads in papers, and send disks by mail.
Today it resides on googlecode, and has a modest 200 downloads a month. Impossible, just a few years ago.

Originally posted by freighttrain
Actually most if not all "pirate sites", provide a statement "IF you like the product, SUPPORT the company and purchase it". So how does it work... brilliantly I think... if "I" have the money to spend on these type of things, "education (books), entertainment (Games, movies, music, software (work related)" then I will be more then glad to pay, because I do want to support the creators, as I am one of those creators at my workplace. BUT, if our product sucks, then why should I be paid?!

Simply because I got marketed better, with more capitalistic sponsorship (ie; iPad)? because I have the monopoly (Microsoft)? NO, WE the people should always be supporting the "small" companies and not support capitalism as it is destructive to our world and people around the world. So if I were to buy this book the actually writer gets about %5 of the money I"m paying... so I'm actually NOT supporting them much, if it was direct contribution to the source, I would be all for it.

FYI, I have purchased many products that I can get for FREE, after trying them out and wanting to support the companies, but if I don't have the money to spare, what's so wrong with "sharing" this wealth of information that can be used for education, work or entertainment?

I personally would be more then glad to pay for most (if I can afford it) and share it with those that Can't afford it? Why should all the rich have the privileged and NOT the poor? THIS is the fundamental problem with copyrights, it is NOT designed for the people, it is designed for massive corporations and I for one refuse to support these capitalistic that STEAL from the geniuses that create this, or the sweat shops used to build them, or the people that we never heard of had to suffer for it's creation, then they 10x the price and sell it to us... don't you see something is WRONG here?

The problem there, freighttrain, is that you are not supporting the creators, you support the distributors.
People who think the best way to distribute digital data is to pack it into a box, and hand it to the mailman.
We need to wipe the distributors off the map before we can think of new models to pay the creators.
You are only handing them money to lobby ridiculous laws and sue you.

reply to post by debunky

We were not talking production costs we were talking property rights. My song is my property. That is the law. Mr. x believes he has full access to my property anytime and as often as he chooses. I am saying I want access to his property. It is a very simple concept. I don't care who likes the comparison or not. This is not about economics as far as the filesharers are concerned. It is about a belief system and a way of life. Ok fine. I want to share your property anytime and as often as I choose. You cannot deny me w/o denying your belief system and your way of life. People need to start ponying up their addresses.

Originally posted by debunky
No rick it isnt the same.

If you sell 1 novelty mug, that cost you 1$, your production cost was 1$

If you sell 2 novelty mugs, that cost you 1$, your production cost was 2$

If you sell 15 novelty mugs, that cost you 1$, your production cost was 15$

If you sell 10000 novelty mugs, that cost you 1$, your production cost was 10000$

Now, If you sell 1 copy of your song, your production cost is exactly as high as it was if you sold 10.000
Ask any economist: The market value of a good with a marginal cost of production of 0 is 0
And market value is what i am preparted to pay for it.

You are not paying for the production costs of movies or music. You are paying for the entertainment.

Good people do charity and work for free. You all should do this too.

What makes people think that they have the right to someone else's property? How about you share your children with your friendly neighbourhood pedophiles? Let him sleep in your daughter's room. He has the right to be in your house too. It's not like he's stealing anything.. Sharing is caring.

[edit on 28/6/2010 by DGFenrir]