Re: Will piracy sink the DVD? - BBC news article

">
> It doesn't matter what they would've done. They stole the material and
> the company lost a sale. Pretty simple.


Go to school and take a class called 'logic.' Your responses are
embarassingly banal.

luminos

<< Go to school and take a class called 'logic.' Your responses are
embarassingly banal. >><BR><BR>


Insulting a person is the first sign that you, sir, lack manners and you are
apparently scared of losing the argument. Perhaps a well thought opinion to
replace your sprays of internet insecurity.

Bobcancel

On 17 Jun 2004 07:29:21 GMT, (Bobcancel) wrote, in
part:

>Insulting a person is the first sign that you, sir, lack manners and you are
>apparently scared of losing the argument. Perhaps a well thought opinion to
>replace your sprays of internet insecurity.

Well, I'll try to explain this more simply.

Yes, DVD pirates obtained the material illegally and the company could
have lost a sale - if, for example, they copied a rented DVD.

But this might not have been a DVD they would have bought and paid for
if they couldn't copy it. So maybe they just have more movies than
they otherwise would have - and the studio didn't lose one sale for
every illegal copy of their movies made.

After all, calling it "stealing" does seem to imply one thing that
isn't the case - if something has been stolen, where is it *missing*
from?

This doesn't mean that breaking copyright laws is _not wrong_. Like
paying taxes, respecting copyright law is a social obligation; in
return for people producing more creative works, our society has
passed a law that ensures they will profit from doing so. Clearly,
illegal copying will lose them *some* number of sales.

It's just that people are not all *that* excited if someone cheats on
his taxes - or produces moonshine liquor without paying excise taxes -
or smuggles in goods without paying duty - and the same applies to
copyright infringement. But everybody automatically knows that
*stealing* is wrong. So, copyright owners, in campaigns to change the
public attitude to copyright infringement, try to equate it with
stealing.

But that isn't accurate.

And since everyone also knows that *lying* is wrong, it's even
counterproductive.

They also know that the DMCA, for example, didn't get passed into law
because of a groundswell of demand from the majority of ordinary
voters. Instead, it became law because of pressures on Congressmen
from a small interest group.

This is why copyright is so controversial, despite the fact that
copyright laws - as they existed for over a hundred years - have been
recognized as legitimate, and have been uncontroversial. Nobody is
arguing for the right of someone to go and tape, say, Star Wars off of
their TV and then make a hundred copies and sell them. That was always
illegal under the copyright law; only the copyright owner can
authorize the production of copies of his work for any kind of resale
or distribution.

It's only lately that the copyright law is trying to reach into the
privacy of the home, as opposed to public distribution of copyrighted
works. It's only lately that the copyright law is used as a reason for
arguing for fitting our camcorders and computers with "watermark
detectors" which have a non-zero manufacturing cost, and which will
cause them to stop working when they *think* they detect the playback
of copyrighted material. With a non-zero probability of false
positives.

Protecting the legitimate interests of artistic creators is the proper
purpose of copyright law. When an industry attempts, however, to
protect its own interests with a reckless disregard of the effects of
legislation protecting itself on other social interests - such as in
the flexibility and power of personal computers - then it can be
expected to be questioned.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

John Savard

John Savard wrote:
> On 17 Jun 2004 07:29:21 GMT, (Bobcancel) wrote, in
> part:
>
>> Insulting a person is the first sign that you, sir, lack manners
>> and you are apparently scared of losing the argument. Perhaps a
>> well thought opinion to replace your sprays of internet insecurity.
>
> Well, I'll try to explain this more simply.
>
> Yes, DVD pirates obtained the material illegally and the company could
> have lost a sale - if, for example, they copied a rented DVD.
>
> But this might not have been a DVD they would have bought and paid for
> if they couldn't copy it. So maybe they just have more movies than
> they otherwise would have - and the studio didn't lose one sale for
> every illegal copy of their movies made.
>
> After all, calling it "stealing" does seem to imply one thing that
> isn't the case - if something has been stolen, where is it *missing*
> from?
>
> This doesn't mean that breaking copyright laws is _not wrong_. Like
> paying taxes, respecting copyright law is a social obligation; in
> return for people producing more creative works, our society has
> passed a law that ensures they will profit from doing so. Clearly,
> illegal copying will lose them *some* number of sales.
>
> It's just that people are not all *that* excited if someone cheats on
> his taxes - or produces moonshine liquor without paying excise taxes -
> or smuggles in goods without paying duty - and the same applies to
> copyright infringement. But everybody automatically knows that
> *stealing* is wrong. So, copyright owners, in campaigns to change the
> public attitude to copyright infringement, try to equate it with
> stealing.
>
> But that isn't accurate.
>
> And since everyone also knows that *lying* is wrong, it's even
> counterproductive.
>
> They also know that the DMCA, for example, didn't get passed into law
> because of a groundswell of demand from the majority of ordinary
> voters. Instead, it became law because of pressures on Congressmen
> from a small interest group.
>
> This is why copyright is so controversial, despite the fact that
> copyright laws - as they existed for over a hundred years - have been
> recognized as legitimate, and have been uncontroversial. Nobody is
> arguing for the right of someone to go and tape, say, Star Wars off of
> their TV and then make a hundred copies and sell them. That was always
> illegal under the copyright law; only the copyright owner can
> authorize the production of copies of his work for any kind of resale
> or distribution.
>
> It's only lately that the copyright law is trying to reach into the
> privacy of the home, as opposed to public distribution of copyrighted
> works. It's only lately that the copyright law is used as a reason for
> arguing for fitting our camcorders and computers with "watermark
> detectors" which have a non-zero manufacturing cost, and which will
> cause them to stop working when they *think* they detect the playback
> of copyrighted material. With a non-zero probability of false
> positives.
>
> Protecting the legitimate interests of artistic creators is the proper
> purpose of copyright law. When an industry attempts, however, to
> protect its own interests with a reckless disregard of the effects of
> legislation protecting itself on other social interests - such as in
> the flexibility and power of personal computers - then it can be
> expected to be questioned.
>
> John Savard
> http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

Quote left in its entirety due to its excellence. That's about the best
I've ever seen it put. Thanks for an articulate and unassailable argument
about the true purpose of copyright law.

Mike

Mike Kohary