VERY, VERY GOOD NEWS!

[Paul Fierlinger]

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2 ... ?CMP=fb_gu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[skomdra]

Well, Paul, I understand that you are pissed at pirates, I am as well when they steal hard laboured art and pull money from us, I just wonder, why no harm to Internet Providers who are the only ones who really financially benefits from pirates? Which interest is protected by not touching big telecoms?

[Paul Fierlinger]

Sorry, I can't follow your question because I probably am not familiar with the entire picture, but I don't mind seeing a thief go to jail and having to carry the blotch of a criminal record with him for the rest of his life.

[skomdra]

The whole picture is like this. This criminal didn't steal anything personally, he merely provided the platform for other people doing so. Such as - Internet providers. They are not stealing, but they are making big money with giving fast Internet which people, amongst other things, use to download pirate content. (it is already long time we are using broadband and flat rates, but much more then we need if we would need just to stream video and check emails, etc. and someone is packing loads of money on that benefit users are buying) The Telecom executives are not going in prison for that, they are protected by system. And their enormous revenues are not going to artists or software companies, not that I know. I never heard of anyone suing telecom company for that matter. So, that is your big picture and you tell me if this is right, for Telecoms, to get away with it. And this guy is arrested on the same indirect responsibility basis. Is it more clear now? I am just commenting on things which annoy me for the long time, like how big companies get protected and some small group from Sweden gets busted.

[Paul Fierlinger]

So what you are saying is that a street mugger who hits me over the head and steals my money as I withdraw it from my bank shouldn't go to jail unless the bank executives who make more money with my money go to jail for making more money than the bank mugger?

The pirates have ruined the film distribution system by giving away the filmmaker's films to the filmmaker's audiences but the pirates shouldn't go to jail unless the Hollywood blockbuster guys go first because they are the only ones who can make big money in the theaters?

[skomdra]

No, I am saying that this guy is not a mugger, but gives opportunity to a mugger to do it more openly than a bank which hides behind the well prepared facade and arresting him will not solve the piracy problem but just create a buzz in media that someone is solving the problem. In reality, the problem will remain, and you and I will have something to talk about. Just like every big farce in the world economy.

[CartoonMonkey]

I agree. This could be compared to throwing gun store owners in jail, because they sell guns that people use to commit crimes. Or arresting car dealers, because they make it easier for criminals to get away from the scene of a crime.

The Pirate Bay guys do no belong in jail for running a website. Providing links to illegal content is not a crime. Google is the largest perpetrator of online copyright infringement, (youtube) but they are too large to sue. This is all about the USA pressing their political influence on other nations at the behest of Hollywood.

[Paul Fierlinger]

I can't agree with the car dealer comparison simply because car dealers sell cars to whomever needs one; it's an all purpose product. E-Bay serves only one purpose, which is a place to pick up stolen property without having to pay a dime for it. What's so noble and innocent about that?! And why do that, in the first place? What's the thrill? It's just false altruism of the most do-gooder pretentious kind!

I'd like to see this kid spend two or three years sweating day and night on a meager diet and dodging bill collectors to then bring his precious product done and ready to start reaping some well deserved income (be it software or any other kind of intellectual property) and throwing it up on his thieves bay for free grabs. If he has to fend for his own livelihood he'll never do that -- if he's financially secure and just likes to do it to other people, he is as evil as any big bank CEO billionaire and deserves to spend time in the slammer.

[skomdra]

he is as evil as any big bank CEO billionaire and deserves to spend time in the slammer.

Well yes, but Paul, in your country the big bank (or bond company) CEO doesn't get in the slammer but opposite, gets to be hired by government (Reference - The inside Job by Charles H. Ferguson from 2010) and how many billions of damage to the whole world, or just US if you want, they created (start counting the people living in tents). I am sure taking a side of an artist, producer, worker, as artist myself, on the other hand looking things globally copyright pirates are not responsible for the bad economy which affects us all. But thats all other matter, if we start to think who deserves to be behind the bars only for a lesson, we could become like some historical people we know very well I respect you, Paul, very much, nether the less, I am afraid we have diametral opposite positions here, which is actually what we call democracy. I think at the end of the day we are just ordinary people working hard to make someone entertained and try to make a living out of it and one poor boy in the prison will not change that fact.

[CartoonMonkey]

I don't think E-Bay is representative of a place to buy stolen goods. Rather, it's a place many people re-sell things they don't use any longer, or sell items they've collected to other specific collectors. Broke a screen on one of your electronics, and can fix it yourself? E-bay is often the place you can find a replacement. Old tubes for a tube radio? Someone on Ebay has one. Graded 78 rpm records, lp's, toys, the list goes on. Sure, it's possible that someone could sell stolen merchandise on E-Bay, but I would doubt that's a very high percentage.

Throwing everyone in jail who is even slightly connected to a potential crime isn't a solution in my opinion. Although the US has quite a prison industry going on. If one typed in an http link to the pirate bay in a message board post, you would be doing the same thing as promoting their site, and thereby promoting stolen goods. Would you deserve to go to jail in this case? I don't think so.

The reality of the situation is that making digital data not copyable and non tradeable, is like trying to make water not wet. Artists have to find new ways to make things work, and thanks to the internet, many other avenues are there to pursue to make money and distribute one's work.

The old distribution system is a thing of the past, and throwing website owners in jail over copying content (or merely providing links to copies) will never change a thing. Sure, I would hate to see my hard work being given out for free, but then again, if enough honest people like your work, and one is crafty about the ways you're selling it, giving it away can bounce back to you a thousand fold. Look at the work Nina Paley has done, giving away her Sitka Sings the Blues film, as an example. She's done quite well on that film, despite giving it out for free, not worrying about pirates. Piracy it can be argued, promotes the material by spreading it farther than it would have gone with traditional methods of distribution. Likewise, video content that is blocked due to country specific licensing restrictions. A friend of mine wanted to watch a particular PBS documentary that was made years ago, and couldn't find it anywhere online. It was available, but only in London. He fired up an anonymous proxy for the evening and watched his video, after "happening to be in London" for an hour that night.

Weirdly, I feel differently about software. I do support copy protection in the software I use, simply because it becomes outmoded over time. Music and Films tend to be around much much longer than specific software and operating systems, so it's easier to collapse a whole business like a house of cards with wide software piracy. I'm not really in that business, but I will say, that I understand wholly why software would be copy protected in the first place.

[Paul Fierlinger]

looking things globally copyright pirates are not responsible for the bad economy which affects us all.

They absolutely do take a large part in the destruction. Millions upon millions of small theater operators around the world have lost income, or have been even forced to shut their venues down completely causing vendors and neighborhood shops and restaurants to close down, parking lots and streets taken over by vandals while Independent filmmakers have lost their most cherished outlets, leaving them (their crews, their families) without income. The domino effect has been tremendous.

[CartoonMonkey]

looking things globally copyright pirates are not responsible for the bad economy which affects us all.

They absolutely do take a large part in the destruction. Millions upon millions of small theater operators around the world have lost income, or have been even forced to shut their venues down completely causing vendors and neighborhood shops and restaurants to close down, parking lots and streets taken over by vandals while Independent filmmakers have lost their most cherished outlets, leaving them (their crews, their families) without income. The domino effect has been tremendous.

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Isn't this more due to digital distribution, and the fact that people have large screens in their homes now? It's often the way people choose to have a movie night, staying in rather than dealing with the noise of a public theater. Also, digital projectors, mantatory from the hollywood distributors, cost the small theater owners upward of sixty thousand dollars, high speed internet capable of streaming films, plus whatever fees it takes to receive the content they display.

I don't think piracy has been the thing closing small theaters, or stopping independents from making money.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Hollywood's losing battle with piracy was at the very beginning of the demise of small theaters. When the big film producers couldn't win, they came up with their new strategy to first spend huge sums of money on blockbuster, mass pleasers so that they could collect their profits in the first three weeks of a movie's release -- then let the pirates do whatever they felt like with the crumbs. Next, theater chains excluded independent art productions which couldn't match the box office sales the crowd pleasers from Hollywood generated, which in turn created home theaters, Netflix etc. The destruction piracy caused was not just financial but cultural as well and I believe I don't have to describe what that was all about on this forum.

[schwarzgrau]

I'm with Paul on this subject. Nonetheless putting someone like the pirate bay guys in jail will probably help no one, even if they made it a lot easier to share illegal content.
The problem is the internet was used as sharing-platform pretty early and the music labels and film studios were only concentrated on handing out punishments. Their understanding that the internet is too strong to work against it came to late. And now they are forced to offer films and music to a dumping price, just to earn a little bit.
People like the pirate bay guys, internet providers and especially share hoster like uploaded.net supporting it and make it easy, but the situation as it is is also the fault of the labels and studios.