[Mentalist]

Silencer, on 03 December 2011 - 03:50 AM, said:

Dammit, there's a reason I left the sentence vague, JLV! I have no idea either, and was rather hoping someone else would do it.

But that being said, I do think we've covered the ground in various threads, like on police brutality, misuse of power, etc...we'd probably end up going over the same stuff again, wherein we have that pesky international distinction (HD, Ment and Morgy are *much* better versed in the politics and laws of the US than I am, so I have to preface most of my posts/points with "well, in NZ..." and that makes things kinda moot, save for comparative value ) cropping up again. Not to say I don't like the debates we still manage to have, it's just probably going to be a rehash, is all I'm saying.

US?
i'm likewise quailifying near everything with "in Canada, the law is..."

and yeah, I'm pretty sure we've covered misuse of force by the state already.
but, then again, i've lost count how many times we've talked about whether piracy is theft or not...

[Silencer]

Point. Still, Canada seems a lot closer to the States in practice, where we kinda function like a state than a country. XD

[worry]

To add to what HD said about judges and constitutionality, and this may have been implicit but I didn't see it directly stated, but I'm fairly certain "un/constitutionality" decisions come up as a product or byproduct during the process of trials where there is a real civil/criminal/etc issue at hand. In other words, a watchful citizen can't exactly challenge a law's constitutionality and bring that sole issue to the courts for its own sake. There has to have been some kind of action to be challenged in court. Unconstitutional laws remain on the books until they are a)enforced and b)challenged by someone willing to do so. Hopefully that's not too much of a "no duh" issue, but I thought it was worth mentioning as the flipside of what was already discussed.

Also, if I'm totally wrong about that it would be lovely to be corrected, since it's the impression I've had for a while.

[HoosierDaddy]

worrywort, on 03 December 2011 - 06:20 AM, said:

To add to what HD said about judges and constitutionality, and this may have been implicit but I didn't see it directly stated, but I'm fairly certain "un/constitutionality" decisions come up as a product or byproduct during the process of trials where there is a real civil/criminal/etc issue at hand. In other words, a watchful citizen can't exactly challenge a law's constitutionality and bring that sole issue to the courts for its own sake. There has to have been some kind of action to be challenged in court. Unconstitutional laws remain on the books until they are a)enforced and b)challenged by someone willing to do so. Hopefully that's not too much of a "no duh" issue, but I thought it was worth mentioning as the flipside of what was already discussed.

Also, if I'm totally wrong about that it would be lovely to be corrected, since it's the impression I've had for a while.

No, that's what I meant by "ripe" in the initial statement. The issue must be "ripe" (meaning there has been an action taken [i.e., why is the suit there]) and the person suing must have "standing" (meaning they are being impacted personally, and the harm to come from it has already happened or is imminent [it's a three part test] and thus they need it to be adjudicated.

If a law is never enforced, despite it being most likely unconstitutional, the issue is not ripe nor will the person have standing, thus it remains in the code. You'll see this oftentimes in trivia about weird laws that towns have on the books that are assuredly unconstitutional but are still there because they are never enforced.

[worry]

Awesome, thanks for that. I suppose besides making it explicit, my personal emphasis was on the fact that there has to be enforcement and challenge before the question even comes up, so besides the trivial laws (which are always a nice laugh), I'm sure there are some not-so-trivial laws that get enforced for a time (to people's detriment) without challenge -- certainly plenty true in the past, but possibly people are ready to broach the subject of unconstitutionality now more than ever (both legitimately and not so much, people being wieners and all).

[dktorode]

Mentalist, on 03 December 2011 - 01:37 AM, said:

dktorode, on 03 December 2011 - 01:28 AM, said:

those poor musicians.
i mean....when JT has to leave the industry to take up acting because of piracy then you know how bad it is.

cant afford their Bentley's and have to settle for bmw's and mercs....aawww shame...really makes me feel bad!
Reminds me of that vanillla ice dvd i copied that one time.
no wonder the guy is so fucked up these days.
all my fault.
should not have recorded him on that tape on the radio.

poor guy.

lol, even more cross-posts

Dkt, the copyright laws are not there to protect the artists. they are, and always have been, there to protect primarily the distributor (publishers). It's a small wonder copyright legislature (always legislature, btw, never court decisions--teh history of copyright law is one of legislature made to protect booksellers, in its origin) only emerged with the advent of capitalism. the Printing press had been invented in Europe in 1440. The first copyright statute was passed in 1709.

Copuright is there to protect the publishers. I'm not saying we should abolish it, but i'm firmly against catering to their interests at the expense of more basic freedoms.

man i was hosed last night.


do not remember posting this...at....all

[Morgoth]

dktorode, on 03 December 2011 - 11:10 AM, said:

Mentalist, on 03 December 2011 - 01:37 AM, said:

dktorode, on 03 December 2011 - 01:28 AM, said:

those poor musicians.
i mean....when JT has to leave the industry to take up acting because of piracy then you know how bad it is.

cant afford their Bentley's and have to settle for bmw's and mercs....aawww shame...really makes me feel bad!
Reminds me of that vanillla ice dvd i copied that one time.
no wonder the guy is so fucked up these days.
all my fault.
should not have recorded him on that tape on the radio.

poor guy.

lol, even more cross-posts

Dkt, the copyright laws are not there to protect the artists. they are, and always have been, there to protect primarily the distributor (publishers). It's a small wonder copyright legislature (always legislature, btw, never court decisions--teh history of copyright law is one of legislature made to protect booksellers, in its origin) only emerged with the advent of capitalism. the Printing press had been invented in Europe in 1440. The first copyright statute was passed in 1709.

Copuright is there to protect the publishers. I'm not saying we should abolish it, but i'm firmly against catering to their interests at the expense of more basic freedoms.

man i was hosed last night.


do not remember posting this...at....all

One of the most common claims in court that.

[worry]

"C'mon, officer, do you think I would download so many Maroon 5 b-sides, rarities, and remixes if I was sober?!?!"

That's not an excuse, son. Throw the book at him!

[Mentalist]

worrywort, on 03 December 2011 - 07:41 PM, said:

"C'mon, officer, do you think I would download so many Maroon 5 b-sides, rarities, and remixes if I was sober?!?!"

That's not an excuse, son. Throw the book at him!

but sir, a drunk girl told me to do it!

this is actually how I end up with quite a lot of music on my laptop whenever there's a party.

[pathos]

STEEEGE... you argument is invalid

[QuickTidal]

I think it would be interesting to see the statistics on illegal music downloading now VS 10 years ago. I think the advent of pay services has made at least a big dent.

Personally, I gave up on napster-style programs many years ago, and I've been buying my songs (and albums) on iTunes for along time.

Piracy just isn't my cup of tea. I'd much rather pay a little bit, and get a solid (supported) product than attempt to find a free decent, not fucked with, not virus-carrying file.

I buy TV box sets and movies on BluRay because I want quality, not shit...and if I only want to see one episode of TV or just rent a movie, I can do that on iTunes as well.

Basically a number of services have arisen over the last ten years that have made it almost easier to pay a bit and get a better product, than it is to download pirated stuff.

Yeah, you could download a shitty cammed movie if you want....or you could wait a couple of months, pay $4 and rent an HD copy.

[Silencer]

^actually, the days of only low-quality cams are loooooong gone. These days, stuff releases on torrent sites in HD usually on or before the DVD release. :S

But you're right about quality control being something worth a bit extra, and it's a good point. Unfortunately most of what you said about pay-services (outside of iTunes) doesn't apply in NZ. Apparently (according to places like Netflix) our network isn't strong enough to support the data, and there isn't a big enough market for them to invest in the licensing/spend time promoting the service if it was. Well...fuck them, then.
iTunes is pretty good for music, though, as long as you're happy with the control that gives Apple over your life (I am...to that point and not a smidgen beyond, thanks muchly), which I know some people aren't.


So, to raise a question that is perhaps a ways off-topic...what do we think of the YouTube angle, then? We're pretty sold on the fact that the bill is rubbish and overbearing, but what about sites like YouTube where one is technically not engaging in file sharing as a consumer, but is likely to be in breach of copyright by virtue of watching an illegally uploaded file nonetheless? You can watch a *lot* of content, for free on YouTube, that you would normally have to pay for to see...

[JLV]

A while back youtube removed the audio from a lot of videos that had unlicensed music. Youtube is VERY agreeable to any company that claims copyright infringement. I don't doubt that they would remove all the copyrighted material.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

I agree that youtube TRIES to do this. But the rate at which content is posted versus the number of people youtube has on staff is a numbers game they cannot win.

And they would be punished for it. And then submissions would have to be cleared. And everyone would hate it.

[wade]

Not to mention the wrath of sites like 4chan which would undoubtedly rain down on Youtube if it started removing freedoms.

[Mentalist]

meh. my answer to this would be to shift the responsibilty onto the uploaders--make registration more detailed, and allow Youtube to disclose this info to the copyright holder if they are aware of the violation, and want to press charges.
I stick by our supreme Court here: don't blame the messenger (content host), blame the uploader.

[Obdigore]

Mentalist, on 06 December 2011 - 05:05 AM, said:

meh. my answer to this would be to shift the responsibilty onto the uploaders--make registration more detailed, and allow Youtube to disclose this info to the copyright holder if they are aware of the violation, and want to press charges.
I stick by our supreme Court here: don't blame the messenger (content host), blame the uploader.

I agree with this. The reason you could get by with Napster is if you turned off sharing, because Napsters TOS indicated that you would not share any copyrighted material without the consent of the copyright holder.

Therefore, as a simple user, I can assume that anything I see/get on there has been ok'ed by the copyright holder. If the service is then willing to share the info given by the person who signed up in the case of copyright infringement, then it seems like we are good to go.

[worry]

It's not a problem that needs a new answer. Youtube already honors requests by copyright holders to remove infringing content. Repeat offenders already get their accounts frozen. Do we need to start heaping punishment on some dude who uploaded a slideshow of his wedding set to the Righteous Brothers? I never condemned Metallica for getting mad over the leaked tracks that ended up on Napster; but they certainly learned a lesson on how to go about redressing that problem, and it's not aggressively attacking your fanbase. And I'd wager most artists realize that. The few who don't should pray they can coast on their past successes *cough cough http://en.wikipedia....opyright_issues cough"

[Mentalist]

worrywort, on 06 December 2011 - 06:01 AM, said:

It's not a problem that needs a new answer. Youtube already honors requests by copyright holders to remove infringing content. Repeat offenders already get their accounts frozen. Do we need to start heaping punishment on some dude who uploaded a slideshow of his wedding set to the Righteous Brothers? I never condemned Metallica for getting mad over the leaked tracks that ended up on Napster; but they certainly learned a lesson on how to go about redressing that problem, and it's not aggressively attacking your fanbase. And I'd wager most artists realize that. The few who don't should pray they can coast on their past successes *cough cough http://en.wikipedia....opyright_issues cough"

once again, I stress that the people who generally obsess over copyright are the publishers.

wrt to artists: my own position on this is confused. I'm not trying to justify pirating music, but back home, there never was a strict idea of copyright, esp on music, since all artists were supported by the state, and frankly they were called "people's artists". essentially, if a song was a hit, and it became well-known, and sung everywhere, it was "the people's song"--on the same level as folk songs that go way back ages ago. and yes, I realise that these were songs whose artist and origin were well-known in many cases. it was kind of if the artist made a song, they wanted it to be popular, and it was expected that it would become public.

I realize, ofc that that is not the case in the west, and I realize that it's illegal here, but it's hard to fight that internal programming that thinks that an artist wants their song to be heard and played, regardless of whether you pay or not.

just another aspect of cultural relativism, i suppose.

[worry]

Nah, I do mostly agree with you on the matter of artist vs. publishers/industry. But there are the artists -- generally a subset of those who have had major success and grown wealthy -- who agree wholeheartedly with the RIAA etc. The vast majority of musicans, of course, are basically year-round workers who have made a career of writing, recording, and performing...making a living, but not becoming wealthy from it. And as mentioned by someone before, even many wealthy artists make the majority of that money from touring, merch, etc. It's really the men in suits, who have no particular interest in the creative side besides a financial stake, who are finding it hardest to adapt. Because the dirty not-so-secret is that CDs were not that expensive to make, but because they could offer that physical product the profit margin was inflated several times over, and the price-fixing made an enormous amount of wealth for the industry. Digital music prices are still inflated, but relatively less so than CDs were, because the deception is less manageable. But it's a battle worth fighting. After all, once you've got yourself a mansion with 10 bedrooms, it's pretty hard to go back to a mansion with only five or six. Merely rich barely registers, and middle class is an epithet.