Re: Would it be considered piracy...
 

Dude, you aren't really stealing the moons. You are just sharing them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Geo

Re: Would it be considered piracy...
 

I can just see it now:

Headline:
2130AD - God sues mortal for lunar theft!

Re: Would it be considered piracy...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Laser printers were, and still are, garbage compared to full-blown photo-offset printing. People loved laser printers anyway because they were in control. They could print nice, readable documents and decent if not 'realistic' graphics for themselves.

It's the same force behind MP3s. Personal control. You can have a huge bunch of music on a drive and shuffle-play it the way you like. Doesn't matter if it has hit the 'Top 40', or if it's 30 years old, or even if it was ever sold in a commercial music store. A little bit less sound quality is not a problem for most people. Even if they have 'high-fidelity' equipment they are used to listening to FM stereo, which is lower sound quality than 128 bps MP3s.

Meanwhile, 'ClearChannel' rides all the corporate owned radio stations and forces them to play the same 10 songs over and over for the rest of eternity, or until they go bankrupt from people tuning out and listening to their MP3s... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif See the reasons for MP3s? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

BTW, I prefer a minimum of 160 bps MP3s. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ June 27, 2002, 14:55: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Would it be considered piracy...
 

Calling it an issue of personal control completely ignores the recording industries main argument. Which is that they have the right to control the distribution of their product.
Whether you believe they are being shortsighted or not, people have the right to make poor business decisions. You don't have the right to make them for them.

When you make your living off of how many people buy your recordings, then you are naturally going to be opposed to someone distributing copies of those recordings, or enabling the easy distribution of those copies without you receiving compensation for them. Espectially when that person gets compensation for the act in the form of advertising revenue as Napster was doing.

Pointing out the lesser quality of MP3 recordings is really not an issue either. Most (not all, but most) people listen to popular music on car stereos, while they are driving, sitting around the house, out at the beach, etc. While they are doing stuff. It's background music. The lower quality of the recording is insignificant if you are listening to it on a lower quality sound system, or aren't concentrating hard on the music cause you are doing something else while it's playing anyway.

Geoschmo

Re: Would it be considered piracy...
 

Not pointing out that it's about personal control misses the main point of everyone else's argument. 'Copyright' has become legalized extortion. It Lasts for the author's lifetime +70 years for printed works and apparently is meant to be perpetual for the music industry. You did hear how they tried to sneak a 'music is a work for hire' clause into recent legislation so they could own everything outright instead of having to pay royalties to the artists who CREATED 'their' wealth? How many years has has it been since 'Satisfaction' by the Stones was released? Approaching 40. Yet we are still expected to pay a fee directly (buying a CD) or indirectly (commercials on radio) in order to hear it! It's part of the culture now, one of the most recognizable songs in history. When can we just listen to it without being tapped by bloodsuckers? If the suits won't accept reasonable limits on copyright then people are going to ignore them. It's the classic case of abuse of the law producing disrespect for the law.

I really, really hope that the challenge to copyright extension being heard by the Supreme Court is upheld or we are headed for Copyright Feudalism.

[ June 27, 2002, 15:43: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Would it be considered piracy...
 

The right to control the distribution of one's own creation, and to receive comensation for it, is a basic tennent of a free market economy. The only people with a legitimate "personal choice" in the matter are the people who create the recording. The writers, artists, and producers.

Saying "I've heard it once, so it's mine" is ludicrous. It removes any sort of incentive for the people who produce the art to continue to do so in the future.

I agree that technology requires that some new system of distribution be developed, but the content should remain under the control of the people who produced it.

Geoschmo

Re: Would it be considered piracy...
 

I did NOT say hearing it once makes it mine. I said 40 years+ of ownership is excessive. This is the same extremist counter-argument that has driven people to ignore copyright altogether.

Until the suits develop some respect for the audience, and culture outside of corporate ownership, the audience and the culture are not going to respect the suits copyright claims.

[ June 27, 2002, 15:55: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Would it be considered piracy...
 

So at what point DO you have the right to tell me that what I make is no longer mine to control? Why is 40 years to long? You are free to write your own song are you not? I am not restricting your freedom. You are taking away the freedom of the artist to determine what is best for his art.

Because something is popular does not make it right. You cannot change the laws to fit a mob mentality. That is anarchy.

Geoschmo

Re: Would it be considered piracy...
 

So at what point DO you let go of something you've been pushing on the public for decades? (Not something YOU created, either.) If you keep pushing it on people and it becomes part of everyday life you then have the right to charge them in perpetuity for part of their culture? If some corporation had been around to claim ownership of Shakespeare's works when he wrote them would we still be paying some company for the right to stage his plays? Sorry, that's not how it works.

This is not some radical new idea invented by 'leftists' or 'anarchists'. The definition of copyright in the constitution says copyright is limited. They did not recognize 'Intellectual Property', only an incentive to let people benefit from having added something new to the public sphere. (The same goes for patents, btw.) I wonder if the framers of the Constitution would have even rcognized 'art' as copyrightable. They were thinking of useful information like maps. If I'm never gonna see something leave copyright protection in my lifetime, is that 'limited'? Corporate lobbyists have had copyright extended and extended and extended throughout the past century, and it looks like they intend to keep extending it. The corporations plainly want to create a new Feudalism where they get paid forever for material that they DID NOT EVEN CREATE. The artists create it, then sign it away for the 'benefit' of distrubtion and marketting. Then the suits get the majority of the money. They have even tried to shut the artists out completely with this 'work for hire' trick. I don't doubt they intend to pursue that also.

You are falling for a shell-game when you think this is about artists rights. They are hiding behind the artists, exploiting them yet again. There was a hilarious lawsuit by Courtney Love for 'her share' of the damages recovered from Napster, you know. The company lawyers huffed-n-puffed and stiff-armed her. She didn't get a cent of the 'damages' recovered for the unfair exploitation of 'her' music, and neither did anyone else. It all went into the suits' stock options. This is about corporations attempting to create a new feudalism. When honest limits are accepted for copyright again we can worry about enforcement.

[ June 27, 2002, 16:37: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Would it be considered piracy...
 

Well, I would agree that limited copyrights are not a totally bad thing. I was saying that extreme example for effect. If the original artist sells his right to a coporation, that corporation shuld not have the complete strength of the copyright protection as the artist. And I think we both can agree that the "Suits" as you call them get too much of the gains from the work.

But Napster didn't distinguish between a recording that was 15 years old, and one that was 15 days old. For all their potificating about improving access to music unavailable by other means, that wasn't their bread and butter and they new it. They were being just as disingenuos as the industry, and you are naieve if you don't see that. If that's all it was about then the lawsuit would have never happend and Napster would be plugging along to this day sharing old songs.

Geo