PIRACY - Should not be a crime... here is why:

In any criminal trial, there must be a valid Cause of Action.


The jurisdiction of any civil or criminal court is in the protection of individual rights, and as such, in bringing a criminal case to court, you must be able to prove an injury, or a violation of one's rights.

a Valid cause of action is:

1. Harm caused to a person, their rights, or their property by a breach of the law.

2. Evidence connecting the accused to the harm caused.

3. A remedy for the claimed breach of Rights.

en.wikipedia.org...


THIS is why the Recording industry *CLAIMS* "Loss of Revenue", because without an actual, Physical, or financial loss of property.... the Court has no subject matter jurisdiction, because the Court only has jurisdiction in cases where there has been a violation of someone's rights.

Copying music is not a CRIME, because nothing of value was LOST by the Copyright holder (No money, No revenue, No CD's, Etc...) and thus, their rights were not violated.


If you SELL this copied music, then yes... proving a loss of revenue is going to be easy, and it will be an open and shut case.

But if you merely copy it from whatever source, you have not caused them to lose anything that belonged to them.

And this is what they don't want you to know.... Because they have absolutely NO subject matter jurisdiction in bringing cases against music copiers.


A copyright only has jurisdiction in cases where there is a profit gained from the use or reproduction of the copyrighted material.

Because a Copyright is ones Right to Exclusive *PROFIT* off of a particular work.

No Profit, No Crime.

Originally posted by Pinke
I will devil's advocate and say this is all over simplified.

You're not paying for a physical copy. You're paying for the work gone into whatever it is.

Not true. Hiring someone is a long and complex legal process. Buying a physical copy is a much more simple process. If buying copyrighted material was paying for work, then it would be illegal to buy overseas merchandise because that would be hiring undocumented workers. It is illegal to hire someone outside of the boundaries specified by the washington DC elite ruling class.

Sure the law stipulates in some instances that you can show X number of people the movie before it is piracy

Where I'm from, it's more about accepting money for a screening, or the area and purpose of the screening. IE you can't do it in a public place for monetary gain.

Its about whatever the state law says its about. IP law can and does go beyond the principle of profit or money.

I bet just about all Schools, Judges, Lawyers, Police all have copywrited photocopied material in their posession right now. Most of the info I was given in school was photocopied by the teacher from a book, and it is the same in most workplaces.

Educational use. Perfectly legal.

No, not really. Can I make copies of college textbooks and give them to people? College textbooks are designed for education use. Yet for some reason those are the most expensive books in existence, but according to you they should be free since I can make copies and give them out. Whats going on?

So get off your high horse

I can't afford a high horse. It's a catch-22 ... You and others pirate things I work on. So the people selling my products sell LESS of them. So MY wage gets lowered. Eight years ago I was on twice what I am now. I still work 12 - 14 hour days, but I get half as much, and sometimes even less and sometimes tighter deadlines and less resources.

Yes, in part because of corporate favoritism such as the intellectual property laws. You are getting poor because the corporations are getting rich by writing all the laws to work for them.

My point is in this day and age it is impossible to avoid being a pirate which means we need to change the law.

Copyright law is more complex than made out from my observation.

Exactly. So complex you cannot possibly realistically know when you are breaking the law. Most of us would have grounds for a lifetime in prison if we were videotaped all day long for the simple fact that there are a million tiny little things you don't know are illegal and you do them assuming they are good and ordinary things to do. The IP system is a total joke.

Those who produce a product would have competition, but they would have a head start in the production and manufacturer

There is less competition now than there has ever been. Piracy empowers the strong, weakens the struggling, and prevents the destitute from ever hearing the starting pistol.

Not at all. The main reason for piracy is not being able to afford what it is you want to have. This should be a self-evident fact. Do you really think otherwise? We can go out and look at the facts together if so.

Originally posted by mossme89

Originally posted by AlertInMi
If you make piracy legal, the quality of product and or services will go down hill fast.

If software was free, do you think we would have windows 7?

You are implying Windows 7 is a good product. Your argument is null.

Anyway, Linux is open source and free, and is a great product. So I don't quite see your point?

ok then Put a Copy Windows 7 on Your Hard drive! Sure No Problem !

Opps your Hard drive just crashed theirs a Physical Defect in your Hard Drive !

Now!! Put Windows 7 on a New Hard Drive ! No Problem!

No Try to Update to Microsoft with the Same Windows 7 that you Own with the Same Product Key with that New Hard Drive !! of Yours ! you will have Problems !

Answers Microsoft
Question
Cloning Windows 7 drive to a newer hard drive lose my activation?
Applies To: Windows | Windows 7 | Install, Upgrade and Activate
answers.microsoft.com... c8b45d3b3aab

After reading the Activation FaQ of windows 7, it stipulates that i will lose activation with a major hardware change (motherboard) or if i change hard drive and memory at the same time. I may be wrong, but i assume that if i am only upgrading the hard drive, i will not be required to reactivate windows 7. No other hardware change will be applied other than the hard drive.

Windows 7 has a built in imaging program, but if switching hard drives I would not recommend Windows 7 built in imaging - use Clonezilla or a program linked below and make sure you buy a bigger hard drive then you currently have. Create A System Image In Windows 7

Yeah its a Hassle !

I can forsee Microsoft will have Anti Piracy Different Unique Decoder Wheel in Each their Software
like Software Anti Piracy Decoder wheel back in the 80s in the Games i played like TSR SSI Computer Games

Code wheel
en.wikipedia.org...

Copy protection specific to XX century games
en.wikipedia.org...

One of The Favorite Games I played

Pool of Radiance
en.wikipedia.org...

The package also included a translation decoder wheel.[3] After the title screen, a copy protection screen was displayed consisting of two pictures and a line. The player was required to use the decoder wheel to line up the pictures, then enter the word revealed on the decoder wheel. After three unsuccessful attempts, the game automatically shut down.

What the Makers Forgot ( For a While ) was the Use of Copy machines like Xerox ! where you can easily take the rivet Out and Copy Each section ! and cut out the Holes ! and have a Exact All Gray Copy of the Wheel !
They then Used a Dark Color Scheme to make it Difficult see from Copying from a Copy Scanner

Pool of Radiance Decoder Wheel ( slide to the Right ! )

reply to post by byteshertz


I understand your point. Unfortunately, there is an entire underground industry that is grossly profiting from producing and selling pirated software, movies, music, not to mention the counterfeiting of clothing and accessories.

If you go deeper we have the production of bogus parts for repair and construction of a wide variety of machines, vehicles and weapons systems.

Its a big problem...

Its tricky and I certainly remember the days of analog duplication, high speed dubbing and setting up two vhs machines. However, that product quality continued to degrade with each and every copy made. A copy of a copy of a copy... The digital age has certainly raised new issues...

Originally posted by JibbyJedi
The more laws that are created, the more criminals are born. Laws create crime.
They will eventually criminalize all normal human behavior and activity, making us all criminals just waiting to be caught and kidnapped by men in costumes for revenue generation.

THANK YOU. At what point do the people say this need to stop? Compare now with 1971, we have more legislation much of which makes little to no sense and yet crime they say is rising? Of course it's rising if you make everything illegal. This is not a free society in spite of the malarky taught in school.

Why there's a stink about "piracy"? Large corporations get to blame the little guy for the drop in interest in their products which when you look at it was going to happen anyway whether there was file sharing and piracy. Lets use Windows 7 as an example. Like most of Windows products it's over-hyped and forced on the consumer when they purchase a computer unless they had it custom built. They have plenty of money to throw at R&D but yet Windows is not that great it just had the market cornered for so long.

Frankly I think our so-called technological age has ended somewhat and corporations that built massive empires on it are running scared and blaming the little guy for their lack of further ingenuity. I guess it's time for the dominating dinosaurs to die.

Originally posted by seachange
If buying copyrighted material was paying for work, then it would be illegal to buy overseas merchandise because that would be hiring undocumented workers. It is illegal to hire someone outside of the boundaries specified by the washington DC elite ruling class.

This seems like a semantics argument? Maybe I'm interpreting you incorrectly, but from my point of view my point has zero to do with the employment laws of Washington DC.

You are legally purchasing a license and a copy of the product. I don't care about that. I care that the money from that purchase pays wages.

Its about whatever the state law says its about. IP law can and does go beyond the principle of profit or money.

There's a couple of different schools of copyright law depending on your country, and you're getting a shovel if you want to dig deeper. Generally it's about whether the use of the item takes away recognition or value from the original product. It's again, pretty semantical. If semantical isn't a word, it is now. Note: I am not American.

No, not really. Can I make copies of college textbooks and give them to people? College textbooks are designed for education use. Yet for some reason those are the most expensive books in existence, but according to you they should be free since I can make copies and give them out. Whats going on?

Semantics again. You can photocopy passages from a book for reference or learning. You can hand these out in class. You can take them home with you. If you're photocopying the whole book to try to prove some point about copyright theft ... then you're probably just being contrary for the sake of it. Plenty of university readers where I'm from are made of legally photocopied text.

It's quite easy to order copies of expensive text books in at a library or go to the reference section and photocopy pages of a book for later research. It's also perfectly legal. I haven't had any issues getting expensive books I can't afford this way. It's also quite easy to get permission from a publisher to include large amounts of educational material in a reader as required. I haven't had any issues with this either.

There's also educational resources which supply huge amounts of articles to students and government for free if they apply.

Yes, in part because of corporate favoritism such as the intellectual property laws. You are getting poor because the corporations are getting rich by writing all the laws to work for them.

That's a whole other complex topic. I'm not under some mystical illussion that if piracy stopped all my problems would be solved ... but I don't believe it's perfectly okay in all circumstances either. If the software on my current rig is 10k+ ... and I'm in competition with users pirating that same software ... why am I being punished? And I know it happens, and it's nothing to do with big corporations.

Exactly. So complex you cannot possibly realistically know when you are breaking the law.

I haven't found it that complex. It's no more complex than doing your taxes. Yes, the laws can be many thousands of words, but generally a person can work out if a certain thing they are doing is okay.

Not at all. The main reason for piracy is not being able to afford what it is you want to have. This should be a self-evident fact. Do you really think otherwise? We can go out and look at the facts together if so.

Media corps have changed their methods of getting money primarily to combat piracy. Incentives for customers to buy in certain ways, downloadable incentives, toys with their products etc ...

I do believe these is an issue with projection and piracy. Every 'nice' pirate thinks every other pirate is 'nice' and will purchase what they can't afford. Also a lot of pirates seem to assume every pirate is a westerner just making ends meet. It's wishful thinking.

I don't 100% agree with big corporations on the issue, and I could easily write 100k+ words on this single topic alone ... Yes there's the can't affords ... but it's also the take-it-cos-its-there crowd. The faux media professional crowd. The I-pirate-to-punish-the-producers crowd. The Bali and Thailand DVD and game stalls. The Ebay pirates. I could go on and on ...

Legalising piracy IMO isn't going to advance the human race in any commentable way. Piracy is a problem, and it has damaged the industry I work in. The amount of damage may be being used by certain dork corporations to make money and can't always be equated ... but it's still there.

I would suggest we leave it there to be honest, since looking at the facts should require 70 - 140 thousand words at least from my view. Anything less and it's barely the surface. There's no point in attempting to point out legal semantics on a board with a 5k character limit.

i never understood why piracy was a crime..... oh no i made th film industry lose a few dollars. now mell gibson cant afford to gold plate his bath tub.... i feel sooo guilty

reply to post by byteshertz


Or they can just leave us alone and deal with it. No matter what they do, pirates are the best at what they do and just as smart as the "do-gooders" who are really more evil than the very pirates they are after. They are politicians and only trying to protect their own wallets so in essence this may be akin to two demons at war.....who do you pull for the pirate or the politician. The politician is more sinister than the pirate couls ever be, as he steals from all of us daily and in large monetary sums but then hypocritically goes after those who steal music. If you fall for this, you are fooled. The way I see it, as much as the government and the media establishment has ripped us off over the generations......we couldn't take enough back from them to pay it all off. Who cares if these artists and politicians get their money, pirates are actually a service to the people without even knowing it. I say, let the pirates take what they may. It is compensation for what we lose on a daily basis. Politicians are nothing but crybabies. You know the old saying, if ya can't take the heat, get out of th kitchen. Don't dish out what you can't take.

Originally posted by Chai_An
Like most of Windows products it's over-hyped and forced on the consumer when they purchase a computer unless they had it custom built.

Every single supplier I deal with without fail offer Linux operating system on their machines as standard on non-custom builds.

Operating systems can't really avoid cornering a market by their very nature.

Frankly I think our so-called technological age has ended somewhat and corporations that built massive empires on it are running scared and blaming the little guy for their lack of further ingenuity. I guess it's time for the dominating dinosaurs to die.

They're not running scared. All the big dinosaurs poured a pile of money into online delivery systems. The little guy was the brick and mortar DVD and CD stores which are closing, and the small producer who is still having to go through the gate keeper because only the big companies are trusted with credit card details and have the advertising power.

Little guy becomes successful? Signs with BMG records, world keeps turning.

reply to post by byteshertz


Things become more expensive? What have you been smoking? You do know what has happened to the price of all electronics...right? Piracy is piracy...Just because some people do it, does not make it right...And the judge could break all the laws on the books, but if he is still the judge, he is still going to pass judgment...Piracy is wrong and it should remain wrong...

reply to post by Phenomium


The ultimate justifier...You need a course in ethics and morals...You think the world is one way...and therefore, that gives you justification to behave the same way...You think lying, cheating, and stealing, your way through life is okey dokey, simply because, according to you, everybody else is doing it...

Look, while normally I'd be the first to jump on the "oh hell yea free #".. Then I think hmm.. How would I feel if I spent thousands upon thousands of hours creating well let's just say a video game.

If piracy were legal, what would be the game companies motivations? A community free game center? Give me a break and get real.

What sort of media is irrelevant, It's someone vision, someones creation. If its good enough that people want it, by all means they have worked for it and deserve to profit from it.

if piracy was legal then actors and singers would make less money, and only the people that had talent and passion for their work would stay in the business. this would make for much better quality of movies and songs, instead of air head wannabes buying their way into films and recording studios, pumping out inane rubbish

Originally posted by Fretz
Piracy should be banned. I mean, I'm a music producer. I want to make money too. Its my job.

Yeah, you want to make money on other people talents? Get another job then. IMO, good artists don't need a producer to tell them what they need to do. they just do their thing and that's it.

Artists wouldnt need a producer if it wasnt for the "music industry".

Some great artists just do all by themselves and get the rewards for their work, not someone else's.

Peace out.

reply to post by byteshertz


All right, I thought about it and I agree with the OP. Especially since there is a new bill introduced into congress called the Stop Online Piracy Act, which is opposed by Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Human Rights Watch, among others.

"Is this really what we want to do to the internet? Shut it down every time it doesn't fit someone's business model?" asks Harvard Business Review blogger James Allworth, concluding that the bill would "give America it's [sic] very own version of the Great Firewall of China."

And that's the main point. A bunch of selfish people who are unwilling to change are sabotaging the internet because it doesn't fit their world-view.

Here it is using the Categorical Imperative:

1) Piracy (or theft) should be the law. In other words, ALL people must now steal (or pirate) others' intellectual property or work.
2) Since no one can possibly lay a claim to ownership of work or intellectual property, then there is nothing to pirate or steal.

Therefore, piracy cannot exist.

Originally posted by ShadowAngel85

So there's a big difference about 'pirating' from the 70's and 80's to the Internet Piracy of today. People suffer, it's not only the big 'evil' companies that go down, but also a lot of people.
You just have to take a look at the music industry. How many record companies are left? There are 3 big ones and several smaller indy companies. Compare that to the recording industry from 20-30 years ago, when companies like Geffen, Interscope, Sanctuary, Epic, Columbia, EMI and others were standing on their own. Now most of them belong to Universal or Sony. Which in the end led us to a really bad mainstream music scene..i mean what do you hear on the radio? The only things left are bad pop music, bad rap music and Nickelback because Sony & Co. only push things that sell and the small companies don't have the financial power to compete with them. Compare that to the 70's and 80's when there were a lot of big companies and a lot of different musical styles were played on the radio/mtv.
Now i know, that a lot of companies went under may no be strictly limited to pirating, but to say it doesn't play big role would be pretty naive.

So, you kinda seem to say that BIG companies killed the music industry, isnt it? They bought all the smaller companies that were doing different stuff and converted them into another arm of their big greedy octopus. IMO that's killing music industry.

We need different stuff than Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and Kanye West. The problem is that it's the only thing radio can air because i guess they have contracts with those big companies? Dunno.. just a wild guess.

Autotune is also a big mistake that kills the music events industry. There are so much "artists" that rely on that to make their cds that can't even sing right during live events. So they can't make live venues and only making money on cd's and crappy dvd's sales.

IMO what you talking about have nothing to do with piracy. It's more a capitalist problem.

Peace out.

reply to post by byteshertz


Wow you got a lot of holes in this argument.

Have I shared videos I've recorded from TV? Sure, but it was illegal.
Have I shared games I've bought with friends? If it was a two player game we played together otherwise I kept my games to myself.

Fact is they state it is a crime to copy the material, so it is a crime plain and simple. The fact that recording technology exists does not negate that fact.

Fact Fail for this post.

Originally posted by ZeroKnowledge
Let me describe totally imaginary scenario - imagine yourself in X years. You work in some software company for 10 hours a day, helping to release some cool program. Then after the release profits are pretty low because of the legal digital Blackbeards and you are laid off, with family/kids to feed and shelter.
Then read your OP again.
Remember,every teenage generation of "I deserve things for free even though i do not contribute anything" eventually becomes generation of "I am working to provide for family". Way of the world.

This one deserves another read...

Everyone

1) If it is not yours DON'T touch it

2) If the maker or owner is charging a price, pay that price, or keep your filthy mitts off of it!!!

3) As of right now it is a LAW, piracy is illegal. Like everything else in the world, if you don't like it, change it. Until then DON'T TOUCH IT!!

4) Someone works hard to create something. Their business model DOES NOT include some bottom feeder stealing it.

5) If the law was changed, the owners/inventors would have to change their business model to include supplying the bottom feeders. Until then keep your filthy mitts off what is NOT yours to touch / download!!

Bottom line is this. Ending the law on Piracy WOULD MOST DEFINITELY increase the quality of product being put out there. Companies would have to work to stay ahead.... BUT, until the law is changed, you are stealing!!