|
 |
On Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:51:57 -0400, nemesis wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospam com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 08 Aug 2011 18:04:27 -0400, Cousin Ricky wrote:
>>
>> > On Mon, 08 Aug 2011 13:03:33 -0400, Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom>
>> > wrote:
>> >> ie, they think "if it's on the 'net, it's public domain".
>> >
>> > Do the lawyers know this?
>>
>> Given the number of lawsuits from MPAA, RIAA, IFPI, and other
>> intellectual property bodies, I bet they do know that people think
>> that.
>
> People don't give a fuck.
Which is precisely the point. People (in general) tend to care about one
thing: themselves. Or rather, they don't think any further than the
instant gratification they get from downloading a song rather than paying
for it.
The artist not getting paid is not their problem. In fact, the artist
getting paid, a lot of times, is not because of piracy (though that
certainly reduces the revenue stream to $0), but because of the
moneygrubbing **AA-like organisations that keep 90% of the profits for
themselves and pay the artist a pittance.....and then deduct "expenses"
from it for things like "advertising" or "marketing" - you know,
nonessential services that those bastard artists think is important so
they might as well do it, but it's not coming out of the **AA's pockets.
I understand the **AA's reasons for fighting online piracy (it is
ostensibly to cut off the supply for those who actually do make
counterfeit CDs and DVDs; I saw a very interesting presentation by the
general counsel of the RIAA a few years ago about this topic).
But in the context of "you're doing it wrong"...."YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!"
- taking down someone who has nothing doesn't send a message other than
you're a bunch of moneygrubbing lawyers who don't pay their artists. They
should talk more about the physical media counterfeiters they've busted
and make some noise about that.
Jim
Post a reply to this message
|
|
|
|
On 8/8/2011 10:03 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> But in the context of "you're doing it wrong"...."YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!"
> - taking down someone who has nothing doesn't send a message other than
> you're a bunch of moneygrubbing lawyers who don't pay their artists. They
> should talk more about the physical media counterfeiters they've busted
> and make some noise about that.
>
> Jim
Definitely. However, I *do* have one argument against copyright as it
tends to exist today. Back when people wanted to make it basically
perpetual (thanks Twain, you really where a twit about some things...),
the argument was that most things would pass from the world anyway, so
that wasn't an issue, what was is the ability of people to not have some
publisher in Britain, or even Canada, selling your own book, without any
money coming back to you for it. The problem today is that we have 30
years of stuff in warehouses that *will* pass out of existence, without
recovery, people holding on to it, not to protect the money they get
from it, but just because it *might be* valuable, at some point, and the
potential for almost everything to remain, even beyond the life of the
artist, or the company that actually owns their works. So.. The result
of this? If someone finds it interesting, even for no comprehensible
reason, it might survive on some server on the internet, otherwise, it
dies, just like more than half of *both* the valuable *and* crap works,
from all prior generations.
And that, imho, is completely bloody stupid.
Its not an excuse to steal anything, but a lot of it is based on
precisely the sort of thing that some people use to justify doing so.
That the people who, in general, actually *own* the product, which is
not to say the artist themselves, only give a shit about grinding as
much money out of it as possible, then reserving the right, to *maybe*
use the name, if not one single scrap of the original work, in some
cases, to sell more shit later on. A proposition that leaves "everyone"
screwed, including the person that wrote the book or song, made the
painting, created a game, etc. And, if that isn't bad enough, in some
cases, like those games, the originals "vanish". Abandoned games, as
they are called, being one case. Nearly everything from the early days
of arcades being the other (and more often than not also falling into
the "we decided to use the name, but completely change the game, instead
of reproducing the original work!", category).
Needless to say, these trends piss me off to no end. Not the least
because it means that, in some cases, theft may actually be the only way
to actually *get* one of them, at all, there being no legit method to
pay for the damn thing.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
