My View on Piracy and Torrents (re: AU piracy crackdown)

a reply to: scubagravy

It's easy, follow these steps.

a reply to: ArMaP

What if I have a photographic memory? If I play the media back in my mind is that copyright infringement and am I denying the creator their due return?

a reply to: GusMcDangerthing

No, it's not copyright infringement because it's not reproducible, it's only in your mind. If you make a physical copy based on your mind then it's copyright infringement.

originally posted by: GusMcDangerthing
a reply to: ArMaP

What if I have a photographic memory? If I play the media back in my mind is that copyright infringement and am I denying the creator their due return?

What if I invite my friends over to watch the show I paid for on my TV set?

Am I denying the copyright holder from earning revenues from all those friends that use my single payment to watch the same flick?

Should I charge my friends each a regular movie fee, and send the total proceeds to the copyright holder, to compensate him for the fact that my friends all saw the same movie too?

Will future TV sets use their embedded webcams to monitor how many people are actually watching the flick in my living room, and automatically charge the fee for the exact number of "pairs of eyes" exposed to the flick?

originally posted by: ArMaP

originally posted by: AMPTAH
You cannot steal something by making a copy of it.

That's the problem with copyright, most people don't understand the creators' point of view.

All you got was a copy. The original is still there where it is supposed to be.

Yes, the original is still there, but by not paying to use it, the creator doesn't get their part.

If I look into your garden and see your new lawnmower, and decide I like it, so make my own lawnmower using a 3D printer, making an exact copy of what I see in your yard, that's not stealing your lawnmower.

Exactly, you are not stealing his lawnmower but you are using the creator's idea without giving them their return.

See how things would be if everybody did it: someone invents a better lawnmower, sells the patent or makes an agreement with a company to make those lawnmowers; the company sells one lawnmower to your neighbour and the inventor gets, for example, 1 cent for it; you see your neighbour's lawnmower, like it and make a workable copy; another neighbour sees your lawnmower and makes another copy; everybody in your neighbourhood does the same, and things keep on growing until there are 10,000 copies of the original lawnmower; that means that 10,001 persons are enjoying the original inventor's work but only one paid for it, so instead of the inventor getting 10,001 cents for their creativity they get only 1.

The inventor feels that they their work was stolen by the people making copies of their work without giving them the expected return. They were not giving their invention away as open source, they wanted to get money from it, but the copiers made that impossible.

PS: as a programmer, I don't have any problems sharing the code of all the programs I make outside the company where I work, but if I did that with the code I made while working for the company I (and all other people working there) would be without a job. Although piracy is not the ugly monster some people want us to believe, it's not right to the original creators.

But what about China? They don't have IP laws and certainly don't give a crap about ours, yet their economy is just fine.

IP laws are crap. They restrict the free sharing of ideas.

Now, if you want to make something and get your "just dues", then make it better, higher quality.

Do you have any idea how much knowledge is withheld from the public due to IP laws?

Now, some will say duh, Tempter, we need to be able to protect people's right to earn on that idea or we will stifle ingenuity.

I say horsecrap.

Republicans like to talk about the free Maret but IP laws are anything but. You want a free market? Get the gubmint OUT if it and stop using brute force to ensure profit.

You'll have MORE ideas if there weren't a gubmint barrier.

Ideas are free. Men create laws and implement restrictions around them and then use threat of force to protect profit.

Does that sound free to you?

Technically, a copy is breaking the law.

But it shouldn't be. It's wrong.

originally posted by: ArMaP

That's the problem with copyright, most people don't understand the creators' point of view.

We all understand the creators' point of view. But, the creators don't just create their products out of the vacuum, they copy the ideas needed to create those products from yet other creators, mostly without credit nor compensation to very many other creators whose work they use to finish their final product. And, it's only those with special patents and huge capital to hire big law firms that can do anything about it, or can do it without the costs of lawsuits affecting them.

This business of copyright is mostly a game of chicken. Who has the most money to defend their copying?

We all stand on the shoulders of the giants that went before us. What is really our own contribution, is but a small twist in the re-arrangements of things other people have invented and produced.

Yes, the original is still there, but by not paying to use it, the creator doesn't get their part.

The creator still gets his part, just not as much as he would like to have gotten. He gets compensated much closer to what his work is really worth, because it is now discounted by the copying, which is directly, and "karmic-ally", related to the creators own copying engaged in during the creation of the product in the first place.

See how things would be if everybody did it.

Everybody does it.

Some people are able to make arguments to profit from their copying, by suggesting that their own contribution to the re-arrangements of the copied material in final product was somehow so much more "significant" that it deserves the designation as "new product".

And cases are won and/or lost on this argument all the time.

What it comes down to in the end, is who has the financial resources to pursue the claims and win.

Everyone takes advantage of their special circumstances, in this competitive world, of make a buck, to justify their copy claims.

originally posted by: AMPTAH
What if I invite my friends over to watch the show I paid for on my TV set?

Am I denying the copyright holder from earning revenues from all those friends that use my single payment to watch the same flick?

As far as I understand it, no, you paid to have the show on your home, regardless of the number of people watching it.

Should I charge my friends each a regular movie fee, and send the total proceeds to the copyright holder, to compensate him for the fact that my friends all saw the same movie too?

I think that would only apply if you had your TV in a public place, like in a bar, for example, as that would not be your home.

Will future TV sets use their embedded webcams to monitor how many people are actually watching the flick in my living room, and automatically charge the fee for the exact number of "pairs of eyes" exposed to the flick?

At least one patent for that was already filled by Microsoft, some years ago, as you can see here.

originally posted by: ArMaP

As far as I understand it, no, you paid to have the show on your home, regardless of the number of people watching it.

But, what if I have a lot of friends?

Say, I'm a celebrity, like a football star. I invite all my friends, a.k.a. my "fans", to come to my party to celebrate the recent victory. And I charge a modest fee at the entrance to my venue, suggesting to my friends that it's just a cover charge to help with all the free "drinks" they'll get once inside.

Then, with my 500 or so friends in the room, I put on a movie that I paid for, and showed them all the movie for just the one fee I paid. Is that still ok?

Who decides what is "friend" and what is "public" ?

All my friends are also people of the public.

originally posted by: Tempter
But what about China? They don't have IP laws and certainly don't give a crap about ours, yet their economy is just fine.

Sure their economy is fine, they don't pay copyright fees.

IP laws are crap. They restrict the free sharing of ideas.

No, the laws allow who had the idea the choice of sharing it for free or not, if they want to make money from it they can. Not having those laws would be the opposite, it would force all people to share their ideas, regardless of what they want.

Do you have any idea how much knowledge is withheld from the public due to IP laws?

Not really, but I know that those laws are abused.

Now, some will say duh, Tempter, we need to be able to protect people's right to earn on that idea or we will stifle ingenuity.

I say horsecrap.

Why?

I'll give you an example.
My elder sister, some years ago, got a contract to make a drawing to be used on a specific wine bottle label. She made the drawing, got her money, the wine maker made the labels and sold many bottles. Some time after, my sister got a letter from the Portuguese Author's Society (where she had her drawing registered as being her own) telling her if she had allowed the wine producer to use the drawing for a different thing, and she said no, so they were not allowed to use her work for something they didn't pay her for.

If the law didn't allow my sister the right to choose how to get money for her work she would have done a work and the (rich, was one of the biggest in Portugal) wine maker would be able to use her work for whatever they wanted, paying one and getting dozens for free.

Technically, a copy is breaking the law.

But it shouldn't be. It's wrong.

Do we have an alternative that would protect the people that have the ideas? If we do not then the reason to put new ideas in use will have less appeal, as people that want to make their living based on their ideas risk working for nothing, as anyone can get their ideas and, for example, flood the market before the original creator has a chance of become known as the original creator.

Look at the example of China, are they known for their industrial creativity? No, why should they, there's no reward in being creative, unless, maybe, a pat on the back.

a reply to: AMPTAH

Once more, as far as I understand it, if it's on your home it's considered private viewing, but I'm not sure, I'm not a lawyer, much less in such a specific topic, but from what I remember seeing at the start of movies on DVDs, for example, we are allowed to play it at home but not in public, so even if you have a lot of people in your home it's considered home viewing.

Having paying viewers, I think, could be different, as you would be associating some kind of money making to the presentation of their work.

originally posted by: Tempter

Technically, a copy is breaking the law.

But it shouldn't be. It's wrong.

A copy isn't necessarily breaking the law.

That's why people file patents, to get legal protection from copying.

Then the patents have to be "interpreted", which is often a very complicated process.

Also, all laws have "jurisdictions", they only apply to some local area of land.

That's why the US can torture people in Gitmo, Cuba, and still claim to be obeying the US laws in Ameica etc..

Laws have a "scope" and "limits".

I didn't see this post before, I will answer it now.

originally posted by: AMPTAH
We all understand the creators' point of view. But, the creators don't just create their products out of the vacuum, they copy the ideas needed to create those products from yet other creators, mostly without credit nor compensation to very many other creators whose work they use to finish their final product. And, it's only those with special patents and huge capital to hire big law firms that can do anything about it, or can do it without the costs of lawsuits affecting them.

If we are talking about patents then things are slightly different, a patent is not the same thing as copyright. Copyright is considered as being related to the creator and applies usually (with different laws in different countries) during what is thought to be enough time for the creator and their closest descendants to enjoy the results of the creation. In Portugal that means 70 years after the death of the original creator. Patents have a much shorter "life".

The way patents work is what makes it almost impossible to publish an open source idea, as someone will patent it and claim to be the original creator.

We all stand on the shoulders of the giants that went before us. What is really our own contribution, is but a small twist in the re-arrangements of things other people have invented and produced.

In the case of artistic productions like movies and TV shows that doesn't happen much, and when it happens they do have to pay to be able to use other people's work.

The creator still gets his part, just not as much as he would like to have gotten. He gets compensated much closer to what his work is really worth, because it is now discounted by the copying, which is directly, and "karmic-ally", related to the creators own copying engaged in during the creation of the product in the first place.

The copyright is their part, someone that has an idea can only get the copyright. Someone that writes a story, makes a painting or a movie has only the copyright as a compensation for their work.

Everybody does it.

Not in the way I was talking about.

Some people are able to make arguments to profit from their copying, by suggesting that their own contribution to the re-arrangements of the copied material in final product was somehow so much more "significant" that it deserves the designation as "new product".

If people add something to the original work then they have copyright over what they created but they do not have copyright over the original. If I write a book in Portuguese and you make a translation I have rights over the original book, you have rights over your translation, if someone else makes a different translation then they will also have rights over their version. Neither translation means you or the other person have rights over the original book, and you can only publish your translation if I allow it. At least according to Portuguese law, I don't know if things are exactly the same in other countries.

And cases are won and/or lost on this argument all the time.

What it comes down to in the end, is who has the financial resources to pursue the claims and win.

Do you have an example? I don't remember any case.

originally posted by: ArMaP

In the case of artistic productions like movies and TV shows that doesn't happen much, and when it happens they do have to pay to be able to use other people's work.

It happens all the time in movies and TV shows. Try to take a camera into some Museums and you'll find that you're not permitted to take photos of their exhibits. So, you can't just take a picture of anything and add it to your photographic artwork. Yet, movies film buildings and neigborhoods displaying various art and architects work all without compensating the artests and architects, or the developers or the owners of these things. They add and enrich their movie scenes with lots and lots of other people's artistic talent, without compresation.

Its all taken for granted, that if it's in the "public domain" they can copy it, and use it, without acknowledgement or paying fees. It has become so common practice, that few people even think about it. Until, for example, you visit North Korea and discover you can't just take a photo of anything you see with your eye in public, and take that photo out of the country legally, etc...

So, the movie companies make a tremendous profit from simply copying the artistic work present in the particular neighborhoods they "select" to film in. Then they take the copy of that local art, and sell it all over the world, as part of their "film."

"And cases are won and/or lost on this argument all the time. "

"What it comes down to in the end, is who has the financial resources to pursue the claims and win."


Do you have an example? I don't remember any case.

Yes. Take, for example, this guys story:

www.fitzpatrickcella.com... orp/

I went to college with this guy, so I know the particular story quite well, having discussed it with him. In brief, he filed a patent for something called "Remote Computing" long ago, and then subsequently went to work for IBM on a contract, on something else, and discused the ideas with IBM, trying to interest them in the Remote Computing idea. Then, IBM turned around and implemented it without acknowledgement to his work, and he has been fighting IBM, along with some other very big companies like Citrix, for decades. Each time, the big cos win, or stall, or get delays, or whatever. He is still fighting, but will never win, because he just doesn't have the "funds" to get the best representation. Several law firms have taken on his case for a commission and they have all lost out to the biger law firms.

It's all about money.

The fact that a law firm would take his case without upfront payment, demonstrates the lawyers see the merits of the case itself. But, they simply don't have the resources to compete with the bigger law firms that have every trick in the book to draw on.

It's all about money.

originally posted by: ArMaP
a reply to: GusMcDangerthing

No, it's not copyright infringement because it's not reproducible, it's only in your mind. If you make a physical copy based on your mind then it's copyright infringement.

It's not reproducible with current technology but what if it was invented? A digital copy is not a physical copy so file sharing is not stealing.

The holes in the copyright laws are glaring and it's amazing the studios etc can go so far in the courts - but then the courts are full of old wrinkly fools just as stupid, I guess.

If they want to stop real, physical copyright then they could always try China, or one of the many other Asian countries that make physical copies of their property as a rule.

originally posted by: AMPTAH
It happens all the time in movies and TV shows. Try to take a camera into some Museums and you'll find that you're not permitted to take photos of their exhibits.

In the cases I know, what is forbidden is to use the flash when taking photos, as the flash of hundreds or thousands of cameras changes some of the pigments used in paintings and may also affect other materials, but this is for things without any active copyright. Copyrighted works in an exhibit should not be reproduced in any way, so no photos.

So, you can't just take a picture of anything and add it to your photographic artwork. Yet, movies film buildings and neigborhoods displaying various art and architects work all without compensating the artests and architects, or the developers or the owners of these things. They add and enrich their movie scenes with lots and lots of other people's artistic talent, without compresation.

For works in a public place things are different, when you are in a public place like a street or a park you can take photos of any thing.

Its all taken for granted, that if it's in the "public domain" they can copy it, and use it, without acknowledgement or paying fees. It has become so common practice, that few people even think about it.

By definition, if it's in the public domain then it has no active copyright and can be reproduced, that's why there are so many legally reproduced books available for free in the Project Gutenberg site.

Until, for example, you visit North Korea and discover you can't just take a photo of anything you see with your eye in public, and take that photo out of the country legally, etc...

That's different, as usual in a dictatorship, whatever happens in North Korea is controlled to make it look like things are great. In some countries, for example, you can't take photos of people without their consent, even in public places.

So, the movie companies make a tremendous profit from simply copying the artistic work present in the particular neighborhoods they "select" to film in. Then they take the copy of that local art, and sell it all over the world, as part of their "film."

And so can you and anyone else, that is not under copyright.

Yes. Take, for example, this guys story:

www.fitzpatrickcella.com... orp/

I went to college with this guy, so I know the particular story quite well, having discussed it with him. In brief, he filed a patent for something called "Remote Computing" long ago, and then subsequently went to work for IBM on a contract, on something else, and discused the ideas with IBM, trying to interest them in the Remote Computing idea. Then, IBM turned around and implemented it without acknowledgement to his work, and he has been fighting IBM, along with some other very big companies like Citrix, for decades. Each time, the big cos win, or stall, or get delays, or whatever. He is still fighting, but will never win, because he just doesn't have the "funds" to get the best representation. Several law firms have taken on his case for a commission and they have all lost out to the biger law firms.

It's all about money.

As I said before, patents are not the same thing as copyright, copyright applies to work done, patents to ideas (or more correctly, to the description of an idea). If someone else takes the idea and makes a patent then they are lawful owners of the patent, unless the person that had the original idea can prove that they had what they call "prior art", meaning something that already existed before the patent was registered. If the opposite happens and the second person to register a patent can show prior (in relation to the first patent) art then the first patent shouldn't have been granted and is considered void (or whatever the legal term is).

The fact that a law firm would take his case without upfront payment, demonstrates the lawyers see the merits of the case itself. But, they simply don't have the resources to compete with the bigger law firms that have every trick in the book to draw on.

That's why I said before that publishing an idea as open source doesn't work (I read about that on a site of a guy that published an idea of how to make a cheap book scanner), as if they cannot prove that they had something already made then those with the money can at least drag the case on the courts for years, and in the case you mentioned, being IBM the company with more patents registered every year, they must have dozens of highly experienced lawyers and very deep pockets.

originally posted by: GusMcDangerthing
It's not reproducible with current technology but what if it was invented?

It would be the same thing, as long as you do not reproduce it it's not against the law.

A digital copy is not a physical copy so file sharing is not stealing.

A digital copy of a digital object is a perfect copy of the original, regardless of being a physical copy or not. If you make a digital copy of a non-digital work then although you get copyright for your conversion from physical to digital, you would still needed an authorization for the use of the original work for your conversion work.

The holes in the copyright laws are glaring and it's amazing the studios etc can go so far in the courts - but then the courts are full of old wrinkly fools just as stupid, I guess.

Knowledge of technical subjects has always been a problem with courts, that's why they trust specialists when needed, and the laws have been adjusted to the digital world some years ago, you can find references to digital copies in the modern copyright laws.

If they want to stop real, physical copyright then they could always try China, or one of the many other Asian countries that make physical copies of their property as a rule.

It's easier to go for the common people.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Speaking as a programmer - I got my roots with torrents. See, at the time, to get ahold of a GUI for the languages that were being taught in school was a bit of a hassle. I could use the school's version, sure...but what if I wanted to do more, working on the projects at home, and learn something new?

This was a time before things like MSDN subscriptions, Community Editions, and school-based email address "free" versions existed.

For me, I treated torrents as "renting" rather than "keeping": I would borrow something until I either learned what I needed to learn, found which songs I liked, or games to try. And then, I'd do the shocking thing and buy what I could (legally).

It's because of pirates I became the decent programmer I am: If I could find ways to get the software I needed, then I'd end up a shrink or starving musician (which ironically enough, I might become in retirement heh).
-fossilera

originally posted by: fossilera
a reply to: ChaoticOrder

It's because of pirates I became the decent programmer I am:

And you've paid for all that software. Because it cost you "time" and "energy" to learn, after which you "produced" things with the knowledge gained, thus contributing back to the environment with your newly developed skills and talents.

The law of karma is such, that there really is no free lunch for anything.

It's an absolute law, that we cannot avoid, nor work around.

For whatever we "get" in life, we "pay" a debt. It's just that most people don't recognize when they are receiving and when they are paying. It's not all done with transactions of cash.

originally posted by: fossilera
a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Speaking as a programmer - I got my roots with torrents. See, at the time, to get ahold of a GUI for the languages that were being taught in school was a bit of a hassle.

This is one of the main reasons torrent technology is so important, it's a way to find old software and files that are no longer easily tracked down on the normal web, there are many times where the only way I could find a file I wanted was by using a torrent search engine, and I'm not talking about illegal stuff. There are many occasion on which it's useful for find legitimate files but if they ban all the torrent search engines then that option for finding files will be gone.