Is "piracy" stealing? - Page 6

Christenson · 2012-03-10, 17:47

@Retina:
This is for you....
http://mises.org/daily/3682

The rabidly libertarian writer claims:

In fact, as far as I've been able to tell, virtually every study that attempts to tally the costs and benefits of copyright or patent law either concludes that these schemes cost more than they are worth, that they actually reduce innovation, or the study is inconclusive. There are no studies [link: http://blog.mises.org/archives/010217.asp] showing a net gain. There are only repetitions of state propaganda.

.....
The von mises author talks about taking away Bill Gates fortune as evil....never thinking that it depends on precisely the IP system he is attacking!
.....

Curiouser and curiouser....especially when the founding fathers of the US specifically granted those exclusive rights for limited terms. There was a definite recognition that the system could impose costs.

The canadian lawyers suing the legal database aggregators over the aggregators copyrighting of their work is an excellent example of the costs involved.

rogue · 2012-03-10, 18:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by retina

An interesting essay:

https://www.insightcommunity.com/ste...ntent-creators

Why do I get the feeling this guy lives in his parent's basement and has never kissed a girl???

If he is being honest about paying any money for his entertainment, I think he is in the minority of pirates.

Christenson · 2012-03-10, 18:31

I personally wonder if RIAA isn't prosecutable under the RICO (racketeering) statues...

rogue · 2012-03-10, 19:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christenson

I personally wonder if RIAA isn't prosecutable under the RICO (racketeering) statues...

Why? How do they differ from software companies?

Christenson · 2012-03-10, 20:06

Something happens with the aggregation in the RIAA that hasn't happened (not universally, except perhaps in Redmond, and with Oracle) with software companies....there certainly have been abuses of power.

Software is also less unique, more utilitarian....My computer is a pencil, and it can run Mac, Linux, Windows, whatever...hard to do that with a Beatles song....

rogue · 2012-03-10, 22:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christenson

Something happens with the aggregation in the RIAA that hasn't happened (not universally, except perhaps in Redmond, and with Oracle) with software companies....there certainly have been abuses of power.

Software is also less unique, more utilitarian....My computer is a pencil, and it can run Mac, Linux, Windows, whatever...hard to do that with a Beatles song....

I have multiple computers at home, why should I pay multiple times for a piece of software if I want to run it on all of them? As least with music I can but a song for $.99 via iTunes and put it on multiple devices. I can actually do the same with a number of games I buy for the iPad/iPhone. They are in the minority. The same doesn't apply to major titles, e.g. Skyrim, M$ Office, Oracle RDB, etc. The Oracle license is draconian. When you install on an enterprise server, the cost is dependent upon the number of cores on that server.

Does something like iTunes put a dent into piracy? You pay a lot less for games and music and with the rating system can get meaningful input before your purchase. IIRC, you can even listen to snippets of songs before you buy. And what about borrowing your friends MP3 player to listen to a song or watching a movie/program at their house? People I know still pirate even though they have done these things. I've heard this statement many times, "That was an awesome movie. I need to go home and burn it." They have no intention of paying. They just want a copy for themselves.

My first point is not to advocate software piracy (which I will never do), but I know many pirates use that argument, i.e. "It's too expensive". I understand their argument, but it doesn't justify their actions. Music/movie pirates fall into the second category. With all of the options to preview content and to get reviews from friends/family/internet, pirates don't have much of a leg to stand on.

retina · 2012-03-11, 00:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by rogue

Why do I get the feeling this guy lives in his parent's basement and has never kissed a girl???

I don't think it matters how he chooses to live (or not live) his life. I think the point of the essay was to say the he is willing to, and does, spend more on content because he is able to pirate stuff. Essentially saying that because the risk of not knowing what to expect is reduced he is prepared to spend knowing he will get a good result from the purchase.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rogue

If he is being honest about paying any money for his entertainment, I think he is in the minority of pirates.

Maybe, but the real issue here seems to be more about the question of whether the (assumed) majority of pirates that never spend anything (or at lest very very little) would spend more if they were unable to pirate at all. The question being: Are they actually spending less because of pirating? And I think the answer is complicated. There are certainly arguments both for and against and it is difficult to show whether the answer is yes or no.

bcp19 · 2012-03-11, 01:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by retina

Maybe, but the real issue here seems to be more about the question of whether the (assumed) majority of pirates that never spend anything (or at lest very very little) would spend more if they were unable to pirate at all. The question being: Are they actually spending less because of pirating? And I think the answer is complicated. There are certainly arguments both for and against and it is difficult to show whether the answer is yes or no.

Circumstance also plays a part. I was an aircrewman in the Navy and when deployed overseas, our squadron was required to have an Alert Crew that could be in the air within one hour. Depending on where we were deployed, the main task of this crew was Medivac. When on alert, the entire crew had to go together everywhere, to eat, to the store, to a movie, etc. Since our bases were basically a self contained town, we were never more than 10 minutes from our hanger. Now, I was not a person who went to the movies more than 2 or 3 times a year, but while deployed I often saw 3 or more a month. Since I retired, I have not set foot in a theatre, I buy my movies when they come out on DVD. But, there is the occasional movie I'd like to see before it is available and I end up downloading it. In 6 years this has happened 3 times and I currently own the DVD for each of these 3. If I had been unable to download I would not have gone to a theatre, it would have just been longer till I saw it.
My parents have had a VCR what seems like forever. They used to get cable with HBO, Cinemax, Showtime and used the VCR to record shows they wanted to see. I used to use an old Atari 800 and a dot matrix printer to alphatize and print out the list of movies they had, along with the code each tape had to identify where it was on the shelf. Back then a 1500 entry report would take 4 hours to run the program to alphabetize them. Once the DVD became the preferred format, they no longer have the premium channels and now buy the movies they used to record.
Myself, I remember downloading an ASF CAM version of Phantom Menace, the first movie I ever downloaded. The movie was not even out in theatres yet, but was such a sensation, I got it and watched it. Did that stop me from going to the theatre? Nope, made me want to see it on the big screen even more, maybe cause the technology was so lousy that it made the anticipation of seeing it on the big screen that much more.

rogue · 2012-03-11, 01:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by retina

I don't think it matters how he chooses to live (or not live) his life. I think the point of the essay was to say the he is willing to, and does, spend more on content because he is able to pirate stuff.

You missed the Saturday Night Live reference to William Shatner deriding a fan with Vulcan ears at a Star Trek convention...

retina · 2012-03-11, 01:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christenson

@Retina:
This is for you....
http://mises.org/daily/3682

This article is interesting but I think it misses an important point.

Company A hires staff and spends, say, 10000 man years to make The-Best-Damn-OS-Ever (TM) and proceeds to sell it. However, Joe Average buys one copy and posts it on the intertubes for free. So now what? Company A receives insufficient compensation for all the time and money spent to create T.B.D.O.S.E (TM) and goes bankrupt. So the argument here is, without any sort of legal protection, companies like A will just not bother to create stuff because there is no positive reward for doing so. The article gives the example of a carved marble work, which by its nature is difficult to make a duplicate, but the article fails to mention about a digital work, with which it is trivial to make millions of duplicates. Why would company A bother to make T.B.D.O.S.E (TM) at all if they can only ever sell one copy to Joe average?

retina · 2012-03-11, 01:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by rogue

You missed the Saturday Night Live reference to William Shatner deriding a fan with Vulcan ears at a Star Trek convention...

Okay. I've never seen Saturday Night Live.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
GQQ: a "deterministic" "primality" test in O(ln n)^2	Chair Zhuang	Miscellaneous Math	21	2018-03-26 22:33
Stockfish game: "Move 8 poll", not "move 3.14159 discussion"	MooMoo2	Other Chess Games	5	2016-10-22 01:55
Aouessare-El Haddouchi-Essaaidi "test": "if Mp has no factor, it is prime!"	wildrabbitt	Miscellaneous Math	11	2015-03-06 08:17
Would Minimizing "iterations between results file" may reveal "is not prime" earlier?	nitai1999	Software	7	2004-08-26 18:12

2012-03-10, 17:47	#56
Christenson Dec 2010 Monticello 5·359 Posts	@Retina: This is for you.... http://mises.org/daily/3682 The rabidly libertarian writer claims: In fact, as far as I've been able to tell, virtually every study that attempts to tally the costs and benefits of copyright or patent law either concludes that these schemes cost more than they are worth, that they actually reduce innovation, or the study is inconclusive. There are no studies [link: http://blog.mises.org/archives/010217.asp] showing a net gain. There are only repetitions of state propaganda. ..... The von mises author talks about taking away Bill Gates fortune as evil....never thinking that it depends on precisely the IP system he is attacking! ..... Curiouser and curiouser....especially when the founding fathers of the US specifically granted those exclusive rights for limited terms. There was a definite recognition that the system could impose costs. The canadian lawyers suing the legal database aggregators over the aggregators copyrighting of their work is an excellent example of the costs involved.

2012-03-10, 18:31	#58
Christenson Dec 2010 Monticello 1795₁₀ Posts	I personally wonder if RIAA isn't prosecutable under the RICO (racketeering) statues...

2012-03-10, 20:06	#60
Christenson Dec 2010 Monticello 1795₁₀ Posts	Something happens with the aggregation in the RIAA that hasn't happened (not universally, except perhaps in Redmond, and with Oracle) with software companies....there certainly have been abuses of power. Software is also less unique, more utilitarian....My computer is a pencil, and it can run Mac, Linux, Windows, whatever...hard to do that with a Beatles song....