File sharing sites Openload and Streamango shut down by Anti-Piracy Alliance ACE

[mr moose]

11 hours ago, TechyBen said:

Nope. I'm not arguing *for* piracy. If I throw money in the street, I can ask for it back. But I did throw it in the street. If I give money to an individual, they may spend it in a way I do not allow. But I did give it to them.

 

IP/copyright is a contractual, not moral, setting. After, breaking those contracts it is then a moral/legal thing. But the pre-defined rules, are not set in stone. A creator *can* give away for free (and some do) and *can* limit distribution (as most do). Thus it's not lawful/immoral to do either, there is choice! Breaking that contract, though, that is where the law and morals come into it.

Or are you saying Linux is illegal!  Or if I share with friends? By the way, have you or Moose ever watched a film or DVD with a friend? Is that even legal? Did *you* pay for that content?  Again, I'm not saying piracy is right, I'm saying, it's not quite as you suggest "copy/watching/sharing is illegal/immoral".

 

It was released, but under a contractual request. I understand perfectly.

I own the content of your post. I invented it first, and I have a governmental proof of that, ok, thanks, please take it down or face $1000s in fines. Right? Is that fair? What about your avatar!!! Do you own it? Mine, is entirely self drawn minus the font which I have a liscence for.

 

You suggest piracy is wrong and you should only use content with permission from the content owner, yet your own avatar is "stolen"!!!

 

Or do we exist in a community with shared content and media? Where we share things (like you have your Avatar?!)??? If I for instance invent a cure to a deadly disease, it might be my rights to withhold it for 10 years, and never release/sell it, or charge billions for 1 tablet... don't make it a moral good or correct thing to do though, even if "lawful".

 

It's not right to use things someone requested you not to use. However, sharing a story, book, film, song, panting... why is that wrong? Why would the artist say not to? I repeat my comments in other threads, other artists and creators manage to give out content for free, or ignore piracy fine! I'm not saying piracy is good, but the best solution, is to ignore it, and focus on other things (such as passing off/counterfeiting/slander/etc, charge for services/performances/products instead of per copy media rights).

 

Nope. That it's a contractual term, not a lawful one (and many countries see this, civil law vs criminal law), and thus a case by case basis. Some content creators *do* give it out freely, thus "piracys is wrong" is not a given, it's a case by case basis.

Then so is your Avatar. You never asked permission for it. Yet are using it. Or will you give a reason why your specific use case is not immoral? PERIOD?

 

As has been pointed out you are trying to argue things that aren't even representative of piracy let alone providing an form of argument that addresses what I said. 

[spartaman64]

1 hour ago, Thaldor said:

And break the one IP law that actually causes a lot of troubles to the consumers.

 

IIRC at least in Finland and most of the EU and US it's a felony to circumvent or disable copyprotection measures, no matter if they are only a label that says "copyprotected" but it might still be a copyprotection measure and to rip a DVD to a computer must go through it.

In contrast downloading from illegal sources does create illegal copy but it's not illegal to download (uploading is illegal because that's sharing), even better if you watch a stream for illegal sources, it's still legal to do so, even more than downloading because everything you watch doesn't create a "permanent copy" to your use. Morally questionable, but it's legal.

Downloading is also illegal and yes ripping is illegal but since in both cases its unlikely for the company to go after you that point is moot and its more moral to buy the DVD and rip it than not giving anything to the company

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

Downloading is also illegal and yes ripping is illegal but since in both cases its unlikely for the company to go after you that point is moot and its more moral to buy the DVD and rip it than not giving anything to the company

Depends on country, here we are allowed to make digital backup copies of our media.

[amdorintel]

they make enough money already, we are just the common man

many things are illegal, its a matter of enforcement because how many people actually do a complete stop while driving whether it be for a light or a stop sign, very few do.

 

there are priorities

there are political campaign donations and lobbyists

 

no one is fighting for the common man

 

i dont see the government cracking down on big corp tax evaders, big government just likes minnows

[Donut417]

9 minutes ago, amdorintel said:

they make enough money already, we are just the common man

many things are illegal, its a matter of enforcement because how many people actually do a complete stop while driving whether it be for a light or a stop sign, very few do.

 

there are priorities

there are political campaign donations and lobbyists

 

no one is fighting for the common man

 

i dont see the government cracking down on big corp tax evaders, big government just likes minnows

There is a big diffrence in running a Red light/ Stop sign and breaking Copy right law. Copy right law is Constiutional Law. Meaning its a biggy. The US constution is the HIGHEST law of the land. It is the resposiblity of the US government to protect peoples work. "[the United States Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." 

 

Also there are a few good people left in Congress who do fight for the little guy. But this is not a fight they can win, not when the highest law states they have to protect these items from theft. 

 

 

[mr moose]

6 hours ago, amdorintel said:

they make enough money already, we are just the common man

 

A very dangerous road to tread when you try to discriminate based on wealth.   What makes you think you are entitled to someone else's money/property/resources  just because they are rich and you aren't?

 

 

[ARikozuM]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

A very dangerous road to tread when you try to discriminate based on wealth.   What makes you think you are entitled to someone else's money/property/resources  just because they are rich and you aren't?

 

 

Because history shows that those hoarding wealth create situations that culminate in bloody revolts. It's called a riot tax for a reason. 

 

Sorry, wrong thread. 

[mr moose]

7 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Because history shows that those hoarding wealth create situations that culminate in bloody revolts. It's called a riot tax for a reason. 

 

Sorry, wrong thread. 

 

That's a fair observation.  But there is a difference between making/changing laws to prevent people using their positions to unfairly effect society and the economy and the act of saying people should be forced to lose rights/freedoms simply because they own more.  

[ARikozuM]

19 hours ago, mr moose said:

That's a fair observation.  But there is a difference between making/changing laws to prevent people using their positions to unfairly effect society and the economy and the act of saying people should be forced to lose rights/freedoms simply because they own more.  

I would say you should lose freedoms in the form of more responsibility. There's no reason that some of these companies should make a huge killing and then leave nothing for the artists and to then try to curtail piracy when we have clearly stated what we, the consumers of [product], would like. 

 

I can't purchase/import every Pokemon music collection at $150-200 a set. And when they do release on iTunes, it's incomplete. You shouldn't ask everyone to buy every yearly game release just because pirating is immoral. If it's cracked on day one, it isn't because you lost a sale. It's because you've made yourself a target that should be doing better not by locking it down for the general consumers, but by making a genuinely better experience. 

 

We're seeing the same thing in automotive and other physical products. They used to be made in a way that they would likely not fail, but today they're made to fail past the moment of warranty. It's like they're daring me to drive my car recklessly in order to get repairs done under warranty. Imagine being told that you can only use your copy on one computer at a time or can only download it X number of times. (there are companies that do that)

 

I'll always say it, but a company that gets to be large enough should have zero protections under the law. It's part of the bootstraps principal. Instead of asking how to stop piracy, ask why people pirate. If it isn't available in their area, that's a them problem. If it isn't in print or in digital, that's a them problem. If there's no demo and people want to try it, it's a them problem. 

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

I would say you should lose freedoms in the form of more responsibility. There's no reason that some of these companies should make a huge killing and then leave nothing for the artists and to then try to curtail piracy when we have clearly stated what we, the consumers of [product], would like. 

I agree, the artists should be able to make just as much profit.  I don't see how that changes the moral position of pirating though.

 

6 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

I can't purchase/import every Pokemon music collection at $150-200 a set. And when they do release on iTunes, it's incomplete. You shouldn't ask everyone to buy every yearly game release just because pirating is immoral. If it's cracked on day one, it isn't because you lost a sale. It's because you've made yourself a target that should be doing better not by locking it down for the general consumers, but by making a genuinely better experience. 

I think they should do what ever they want with their own IP,  I just won't pay for it or consume it if it's unreasonable to me.

 

6 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

We're seeing the same thing in automotive and other physical products. They used to be made in a way that they would likely not fail, but today they're made to fail past the moment of warranty. It's like they're daring me to drive my car recklessly in order to get repairs done under warranty. Imagine being told that you can only use your copy on one computer at a time or can only download it X number of times. (there are companies that do that)

I know there are products like that, lotus 123 used to have an install only 3 times lock on it,  again, if you don't like it don't buy it.   AS it stands I refuse to buy brand new cars, I will not buy nor play a game that has user logged issue that are not being fixed.  I refuse to watch a movie or tv show if the only way to view it is paying a stupidly high amount for a streaming service I don't need.    This is my chief argument here,  if something is unreasonable then don't use it.  The only thing pirating does is give these companies more fuel to argue that its a money thing and double down on tighter DRM and push for harder laws. 

 

6 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

I'll always say it, but a company that gets to be large enough should have zero protections under the law. It's part of the bootstraps principal. Instead of asking how to stop piracy, ask why people pirate. If it isn't available in their area, that's a them problem. If it isn't in print or in digital, that's a them problem. If there's no demo and people want to try it, it's a them problem. 

 

We know why people pirate, they don't want to pay for the product is the chief reason given (it's even been evidenced in linked articles on this thread).   There are very few genuine instances were content is not legally available.    Most of the people arguing in this thread are from the US/UK.  I don't know anywhere in the US that has a geo restriction in place due simply to a company not wanting to sell the product.

 

The second thing is the whole having different rules depending on how wealthy someone is.  That just doesn't fly.

[Donut417]

5 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I don't know anywhere in the US that has a geo restriction in place due simply to a company not wanting to sell the product.

 

Obscure items might not be aviable. You maybe you want to watch programing that is from a diffrent country. Do you think all the media in the world is aviable in the US? Its not. You also have to consider the multiple cultures living in the US. What if you immagrate to the US, but still want to watch shows from your country of birth? Whos to say its going to be aviable. 

 

Also, sometimes liscensing expires and no one picks it up. Then you have content that was once aviable that may no longer be aviable. Or sometimes in not entirely clear who owns the rights. As the company went out of business or multiple companies were invovled and its not entirely clear. Which is why copy rights should be for a limited time like 20 years or something. 

[ARikozuM]

4 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Which is why copy rights should be for a limited time like 20 years or something. 

10. You should be hitting your work for all its worth.

[mr moose]

7 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Obscure items might not be aviable. You maybe you want to watch programing that is from a diffrent country. Do you think all the media in the world is aviable in the US? Its not. You also have to consider the multiple cultures living in the US. What if you immagrate to the US, but still want to watch shows from your country of birth? Whos to say its going to be aviable. 

 

Also, sometimes liscensing expires and no one picks it up. Then you have content that was once aviable that may no longer be aviable. Or sometimes in not entirely clear who owns the rights. As the company went out of business or multiple companies were invovled and its not entirely clear. Which is why copy rights should be for a limited time like 20 years or something. 

 

I see a fair bit of edge case stuff being used as mainstream arguments.  Sure there is content that just goes dark, some stuff that companies don't want to publish in another country. Many times there is a reason this happens.  Either way it still doesn't give anyone the right to use content without having permission.   As I said before, who has the right to put a time line on my property?  who can decide that the work I put into a product can no longer be mine?  There is a reason these issues are not black and white, not the least of which is the constant desire people have to outright ignore the other side of the argument. 

 

3 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

10. You should be hitting your work for all its worth.

 

Bit hard to do when pirates redistribute your work in the first week. 

[Donut417]

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Either way it still doesn't give anyone the right to use content without having permission. 

Never said it did. Just pointing out that "free" is not the only reason. Some people acutally pirate and end up buying the item as well. Ive done that, I pirated Sins of a Solar Empire and enjoyed the game. So I gave Stardock the money for the game and the expansions. While free has a bit to do with it. Many people just want to see if its worth the buy. 

[mr moose]

50 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

 While free has a bit to do with it. Many people just want to see if its worth the buy. 

Other way around.   As this thread (and the links in it) is evidence (only 22/21% said they would stop if it was cheaper/more convient respectively), when they made things cheaper piracy did not go down, when they made things easier to purchase, piracy did not go down, now people are arguing for a time limit on copyright, will that change piracy?  I highly doubt it.    GoT is the most pirated tv show in Australia (the world actually), yet it is available in Australia.   Money is the reason most people pirate, ease of access is a myth for most of the first world and I put it to many that convenience is an excuse.

 

The only thing that even remotely flies in the face of all this is music, but given listening to spotify with a few ads is easier than torrenting or P2P sharing, it stands to reason that it still happens in a somewhat legit manner resulting in less music piracy. 

 

 

EDIT: I should add that the reason for my stance on why people pirate is based on the surveys that indicate piracy levels have not changed.  In 2015 they were 27% and last year they were 25%,  2% as indicated in the linked articles is still inside the confidence interval.  It is entirely possible that the wording changes in the survey caused this result and not actual changes in behavior.    We can no more claim piracy has decreased than we can claim a reason for it doing so, ergo any changes to content availability and price over the last 4 years have had zero evidential effects on piracy.

 

 

[AngryBeaver]

Not sure this has been covered, but in some circumstances pirating has increased the revenue of some companies (which is strange I know to hear).

 

Now a lot of this from the game perspective is how long it takes before it gets pirated. If it is able to guard against being cracked for 60-90 days then the company gets the majority of their sales still... then depending on a multiplayer component or content delivery then people who pickup the pirated version (who would otherwise never have tried or purchased the game) will get interested and actually buy the game where they wouldn't have.

 

I mean pirating is bad in general, but I feel the Movie and music industries are the ones that are hurt the most. The game industry doesn't really get hurt, because those that pirate a game normally would have never purchased it anyways. It in the end does help add additional sales in some cases and also allows for more reviews (that could be good) as well.

[Kisai]

13 hours ago, mr moose said:

 Money is the reason most people pirate, ease of access is a myth for most of the first world and I put it to many that convenience is an excuse.

 

Like I said elsewhere in the thread. It's the ease of access/convenience that gets people to not seek the pirated material in the first place. If I have a netflix or spotify subscription, and the thing is on it, I'm not going to go out of my way to download something I'm only going to watch/listen to once. Hence it's in all copyright holders best interests to put their content everywhere where THEY benefit (eg Netflix), not the platform-only (like youtube, twitter and facebook where you get nothing.)  If one platform earns you $1 per play (subscription,) and another earns you 1 cent per play (ads), vs $50 per disc sold, you're likely going to ask why would you permit it to be streamed if the number of plays isn't 50 times the number of discs sold or 5000 times the number of discs sold. Many foreign TV shows sell so few discs/sets because people are unwilling to pay shipping costs. I bought BD's of some titles from the US, despite the show being made in Canada, and in Vancouver where I live, because for some reason the show wasn't made available on Blueray in Canada. Yes it was the US channel the show aired on that had the discs made. Not the Canadian one. This has happened at least three times for shows filmed and made in Vancouver that aired on Global/Showcase. It's also happening again for shows that are filmed in Vancouver but shown on the CW. Fortunately THIS TIME around all those shows are on Netflix.

 

Like in all seriousness, No "ad supported" site, let alone legacy media (TV, magazines and newspapers) actually pays enough to warrant the ads they show. Thank google for driving down the cost of ads to the point where "ad supported" is synonymous with "worthless content"

 

As much as I hated the idea of subscriptions in the past, I wasn't open to it until the cost of one netflix subscription was cheaper than renting 5 movies (and movie rental shops long since disappeared.) But if it's going to turn into a contest of exclusive content, screw that noise. I'll subscribe to the one thing (Netflix) and watch everything there, and IF and ONLY IF some other channel has something I want to watch, I'll subscribe to it for the month or so to watch everything in one go. There's no way I'm going to maintain a subscription to watch something that comes out monthly. I'm not born yesterday. Those Star Trek shows? Sure I was a bit interested, but I was not interested enough to subscribe, or even seek out pirate versions. I'd rather wait for it to show up on Netflix, and if's not going to, I'll wait till some time in the future when it's on Netflix or can be purchased on iTunes.

 

Other people here would likely just pirate it without a second thought because they want to keep up with their friends who also pirate it/watch it legally the same day the show is released. That's not an entirely unreasonable point of view to keep from being spoiled, but it's still wrong.

[Zodiark1593]

On 11/6/2019 at 10:55 AM, Thaldor said:

And break the one IP law that actually causes a lot of troubles to the consumers.

 

IIRC at least in Finland and most of the EU and US it's a felony to circumvent or disable copyprotection measures, no matter if they are only a label that says "copyprotected" but it might still be a copyprotection measure and to rip a DVD to a computer must go through it.

In contrast downloading from illegal sources does create illegal copy but it's not illegal to download (uploading is illegal because that's sharing), even better if you watch a stream for illegal sources, it's still legal to do so, even more than downloading because everything you watch doesn't create a "permanent copy" to your use. Morally questionable, but it's legal.

I'd generally consider it safer to rip from the source disks than downloading from a torrent. Not only is the source known (and likely to be free of malware), quality is almost guaranteed, and you won't be drawing attention from ISPs or network admins.

 

Generally, I rip the media myself to be able to compress it to a more manageable size for playback from my USB drive, as well as to have a remote backup (because I live in prime wildfire territory). 

[mr moose]

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

 

Like I said elsewhere in the thread. It's the ease of access/convenience that gets people to not seek the pirated material in the first place. If I have a netflix or spotify subscription, and the thing is on it, I'm not going to go out of my way to download something I'm only going to watch/listen to once. Hence it's in all copyright holders best interests to put their content everywhere where THEY benefit (eg Netflix), not the platform-only (like youtube, twitter and facebook where you get nothing.)  If one platform earns you $1 per play (subscription,) and another earns you 1 cent per play (ads), vs $50 per disc sold, you're likely going to ask why would you permit it to be streamed if the number of plays isn't 50 times the number of discs sold or 5000 times the number of discs sold. Many foreign TV shows sell so few discs/sets because people are unwilling to pay shipping costs. I bought BD's of some titles from the US, despite the show being made in Canada, and in Vancouver where I live, because for some reason the show wasn't made available on Blueray in Canada. Yes it was the US channel the show aired on that had the discs made. Not the Canadian one. This has happened at least three times for shows filmed and made in Vancouver that aired on Global/Showcase. It's also happening again for shows that are filmed in Vancouver but shown on the CW. Fortunately THIS TIME around all those shows are on Netflix.

 

Like in all seriousness, No "ad supported" site, let alone legacy media (TV, magazines and newspapers) actually pays enough to warrant the ads they show. Thank google for driving down the cost of ads to the point where "ad supported" is synonymous with "worthless content"

 

As much as I hated the idea of subscriptions in the past, I wasn't open to it until the cost of one netflix subscription was cheaper than renting 5 movies (and movie rental shops long since disappeared.) But if it's going to turn into a contest of exclusive content, screw that noise. I'll subscribe to the one thing (Netflix) and watch everything there, and IF and ONLY IF some other channel has something I want to watch, I'll subscribe to it for the month or so to watch everything in one go. There's no way I'm going to maintain a subscription to watch something that comes out monthly. I'm not born yesterday. Those Star Trek shows? Sure I was a bit interested, but I was not interested enough to subscribe, or even seek out pirate versions. I'd rather wait for it to show up on Netflix, and if's not going to, I'll wait till some time in the future when it's on Netflix or can be purchased on iTunes.

 

Other people here would likely just pirate it without a second thought because they want to keep up with their friends who also pirate it/watch it legally the same day the show is released. That's not an entirely unreasonable point of view to keep from being spoiled, but it's still wrong.

 

that's only for you and your experience, the surveys say people pirate to save money and the introduction of netflix and the cost of those services coming down did not change piracy levels. 

 

17 hours ago, mr moose said:

Other way around.   As this thread (and the links in it) is evidence (only 22/21% said they would stop if it was cheaper/more convient respectively), when they made things cheaper piracy did not go down, when they made things easier to purchase, piracy did not go down, now people are arguing for a time limit on copyright, will that change piracy?  I highly doubt it.    GoT is the most pirated tv show in Australia (the world actually), yet it is available in Australia.   Money is the reason most people pirate, ease of access is a myth for most of the first world and I put it to many that convenience is an excuse.

 

The only thing that even remotely flies in the face of all this is music, but given listening to spotify with a few ads is easier than torrenting or P2P sharing, it stands to reason that it still happens in a somewhat legit manner resulting in less music piracy. 

 

 

EDIT: I should add that the reason for my stance on why people pirate is based on the surveys that indicate piracy levels have not changed.  In 2015 they were 27% and last year they were 25%,  2% as indicated in the linked articles is still inside the confidence interval.  It is entirely possible that the wording changes in the survey caused this result and not actual changes in behavior.    We can no more claim piracy has decreased than we can claim a reason for it doing so, ergo any changes to content availability and price over the last 4 years have had zero evidential effects on piracy.

 

 

 

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

 

that's only for you and your experience, the surveys say people pirate to save money and the introduction of netflix and the cost of those services coming down did not change piracy levels. 

 

 

There's an entire culture thing that this thread hasn't really scratched the surface of, so let me tell you a different story.

 

My Dad's side of the family, without question, do not care how they consume media. Subscription, rent, pirate. It doesn't matter. It's been this way forever. You go look in the old VHS drawer and all but maybe 3 tapes out of 50 will have handmade labels on them, with the majority being recorded from TV. My Cousins on the other hand used to buy VHS tapes all the time, and it was actually strange considering that they break their stuff so much. This was also true with computer games. A can name probably every game Dad bought through the 80's to the 90's because we didn't buy very many, we would buy one, make a copy of it, and then pass it to the next relative. Culturally this was acceptable. Guess who was the one who actually read the copyright notice? 

 

Me.

 

When I started asking questions, I got a mixture of "I don't care" to "I know it's wrong, but they missed their opportunity to sell it to me."

 

Yes, I lived in a small city. A rather rural one at that. I had never seen a FedEX or UPS delivery truck, or even a transit bus for the first 15 years living there. There was not the opportunity to buy things, so you had to wait for the cousin in Vancouver to ship you the stuff they weren't watching/playing. 

 

I had VHS tapes that were from 1985 or so because Cable was available in Vancouver, not where I lived.

 

I hope this explains the culture aspect. If it is not available, or never available, people don't even know about it, and their first encounter with some piece of content might be someone sharing a pirated copy of it. 

 

Hell, until DVD's were even a thing, the local VHS rental place only carried like 10 copies of new releases, and got rid of them after a few months to make space for the next new releases. If you wanted to own it, you had better luck getting the rental stores hand-me-downs.

 

The internet changed things, and when your culture consisted primarily of "getting copies of a friend", your choice was limited to what your friends had a common interest in.

 

This would continue with my Dad right up to Openload and the Kodi boxes made it "easy" to just stream a pirated video. Now if he was still around, he might just go back to VPN + TPB.

 

Yes, he is gone. So how did I close that hole in "Mom just wants to watch the TV"? I left my netflix subscription logged into her smart TV, and that was it. If she wants to watch something now she can use my Netflix account or she can use the TV PVR to record things she's interested in. I'm not going to explain or enable her to watched pirate content, because she absolutely knows it's wrong and I know it would make her feel guilty.

 

My Dad, would also do the "share pirate video" things with his buddies. You know, the guys who can clearly afford their own movies. I'm pretty sure my Dad actually introduced them to kodi boxes.

 

There is NOTHING I could have said to convince my dad not to pirate things. He did not see anything wrong with it, because he grew up in a culture where you didn't own things. You can't take it with you, so why attach a value to it.

 

That's not how I see it, because I'm in contact with a lot of creators, and creators will tell you point blank what they think of pirate copies, counterfeit merchandise, fanart sold for proft and so forth that attempts to make money off their content. It makes them livid. You can't control all the channels for pirate materials, but you can can use the "quit being such a jackass" angle to try and guilt people into at least not giving the pirates money.

 

You can't make a smoker stop smoking by being a jerk to them about it, they have to choose to quit. The same with pirates. If you want the pirates to stop you have to appeal to the people who have the means to pay to actually pay.

[mr moose]

49 minutes ago, Kisai said:

There's an entire culture thing that this thread hasn't really scratched the surface of, so let me tell you a different story.

 

My Dad's side of the family, without question, do not care how they consume media. Subscription, rent, pirate. It doesn't matter. It's been this way forever. You go look in the old VHS drawer and all but maybe 3 tapes out of 50 will have handmade labels on them, with the majority being recorded from TV. My Cousins on the other hand used to buy VHS tapes all the time, and it was actually strange considering that they break their stuff so much. This was also true with computer games. A can name probably every game Dad bought through the 80's to the 90's because we didn't buy very many, we would buy one, make a copy of it, and then pass it to the next relative. Culturally this was acceptable. Guess who was the one who actually read the copyright notice? 

 

Me.

 

When I started asking questions, I got a mixture of "I don't care" to "I know it's wrong, but they missed their opportunity to sell it to me."

 

Yes, I lived in a small city. A rather rural one at that. I had never seen a FedEX or UPS delivery truck, or even a transit bus for the first 15 years living there. There was not the opportunity to buy things, so you had to wait for the cousin in Vancouver to ship you the stuff they weren't watching/playing. 

 

I had VHS tapes that were from 1985 or so because Cable was available in Vancouver, not where I lived.

 

I hope this explains the culture aspect. If it is not available, or never available, people don't even know about it, and their first encounter with some piece of content might be someone sharing a pirated copy of it. 

 

Hell, until DVD's were even a thing, the local VHS rental place only carried like 10 copies of new releases, and got rid of them after a few months to make space for the next new releases. If you wanted to own it, you had better luck getting the rental stores hand-me-downs.

 

The internet changed things, and when your culture consisted primarily of "getting copies of a friend", your choice was limited to what your friends had a common interest in.

 

This would continue with my Dad right up to Openload and the Kodi boxes made it "easy" to just stream a pirated video. Now if he was still around, he might just go back to VPN + TPB.

 

Yes, he is gone. So how did I close that hole in "Mom just wants to watch the TV"? I left my netflix subscription logged into her smart TV, and that was it. If she wants to watch something now she can use my Netflix account or she can use the TV PVR to record things she's interested in. I'm not going to explain or enable her to watched pirate content, because she absolutely knows it's wrong and I know it would make her feel guilty.

 

My Dad, would also do the "share pirate video" things with his buddies. You know, the guys who can clearly afford their own movies. I'm pretty sure my Dad actually introduced them to kodi boxes.

 

There is NOTHING I could have said to convince my dad not to pirate things. He did not see anything wrong with it, because he grew up in a culture where you didn't own things. You can't take it with you, so why attach a value to it.

 

That's not how I see it, because I'm in contact with a lot of creators, and creators will tell you point blank what they think of pirate copies, counterfeit merchandise, fanart sold for proft and so forth that attempts to make money off their content. It makes them livid. You can't control all the channels for pirate materials, but you can can use the "quit being such a jackass" angle to try and guilt people into at least not giving the pirates money.

 

You can't make a smoker stop smoking by being a jerk to them about it, they have to choose to quit. The same with pirates. If you want the pirates to stop you have to appeal to the people who have the means to pay to actually pay.

to be quite honest I don't know how any of that changes what I have been saying.  I had virtually exactly the same experience growing up.  I am not a content creator but I do work with them and I respect their right to control their own work.  I just don't see any of the arguments people are making to hold any water.

 

people trying to justify their reason for pirating claiming it will drop when companies change, yet in the same breath many are saying you will never stop piracy and the research is showing that sentiment is true.

 

I think the biggest thing that makes me shake my head in these threads is when people confuse the futility of something with it's legitimacy. Not being able to stop piracy doesn't somehow make it legit. 

 

 

[TechyBen]

On 11/8/2019 at 11:18 PM, mr moose said:

to be quite honest I don't know how any of that changes what I have been saying.  I had virtually exactly the same experience growing up.  I am not a content creator but I do work with them and I respect their right to control their own work.  I just don't see any of the arguments people are making to hold any water.

 

people trying to justify their reason for pirating claiming it will drop when companies change, yet in the same breath many are saying you will never stop piracy and the research is showing that sentiment is true.

 

I think the biggest thing that makes me shake my head in these threads is when people confuse the futility of something with it's legitimacy. Not being able to stop piracy doesn't somehow make it legit. 

 

 

So have you paid for that Avatar? Or is it fair use? These things go down a great rabbit hole. And it seems both sides just want to argue, and very few want to actually work together.

 

As I've said, I pay for and get DRM free games, and those providing them seem to do fine with it. My music collection is on CD and Spotify, and the artists seem fine with it (many releasing entire albums for free on youtube/Spotify add versions, or back catalogues on their website/radio etc).

[TechyBen]

On 11/6/2019 at 9:24 AM, leadeater said:

No that is not, it's a situation covered in the details of the law in sections around public viewings or charging to view. Inviting friends over to watch is completely legal thing to do, there is however a limit to the number where by it is deemed a public viewing. A public viewing is also showing it at say a town hall with no restriction on entry, or exceeding that limit of people.

 

Edit:

 

 

Exactly. It's a variable, that depends on the social and communicative (between the creator/seller and the audience/customer) setting/laws. Thus, these "you're breaking the LAW" arguments, and "it's immoral", are rather lost.

 

If I tell you it's $10,000 to read my post, and you must not read it or tell anyone about it if you do not pay... am I being unreasonable? If I reduce it to $1, is it still unreasonable? If it's free, now it seems reasonable. But my decision, vs yours, is unlikely to meet agreement, so we might use arbitration or community law (here it's LTT forums standards, others might be legal distribution rights for news reporting or publication laws).

 

There is room to discuss this, with creators and consumers. As a creator, I couldn't care less is someone distributes my stuff for free. I care a LOT if they pretend they created it. As a consumer, I want to pay the creators, and when I cannot, am more confused and frustrated than anything. (SuperMeatboy, World Of Goo, etc, are examples I know of where exclusivity deals killed their market/income for 12 months or more).

[leadeater]

8 hours ago, TechyBen said:

Exactly. It's a variable, that depends on the social and communicative (between the creator/seller and the audience/customer) setting/laws. Thus, these "you're breaking the LAW" arguments, and "it's immoral", are rather lost.

No it isn't it's very clear and reasoned to why the rules are they way they are. Buying a copy of the movie and doing a public screening is being an immoral ass and EVERYONE doing it knows they are flouting the law. Not giving a damn and doing it anyway is not a justified reason in the same way breaking the speed limit isn't.

 

You cannot try and charge me a damn thing for your post because you have made it public on a non charging platform and have made no attempt to protect it which by definition forfeits your copyright, also covered under copyright law.

 

Your example is so flawed.

 

You are not allowed to charge after the fact, ever. If you want to charge you do it before then I can decide to pay or not, you can set what ever price you want, any.

 

8 hours ago, TechyBen said:

As a creator, I couldn't care less is someone distributes my stuff for free. I care a LOT if they pretend they created it.

Laws aren't just about you, many do care.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

On 11/4/2019 at 5:02 AM, leadeater said:

lol it's NZ, big fat no. Many of them are the same channel delayed an hour, why??? No idea, recording TV has been a thing since the 90s.

you have to pay for recording in India so no one ever does.