That's certainly true - I do sometimes wonder though with today's legal antics

Regards
Zy

But it does take a degree in philosophy.

Just kidding.
Though as a philosopher who is well on his way to getting a degree, I cannot pass the opportunity to say that right and wrong are often subjective concepts and not that easily defined or delineated.
No matter how hard we may try, there can never be a rigid, full-proof system of ethics which is guaranteed to objectively assess and judge any given situation. So the concepts of right and wrong vary from case to case, from society to society, even from person to person.
What we think of right and wrong largely depends on what we were taught about these ideas, what our society as a whole holds as right and wrong, etc.

I must state again that I believe reactive measures such as banning, even imprisonment, are not a good way to go dealing with issues such as these. Proactive measures such as getting-of-the-high-horse-and-improving-the-quality-of-service/content-and-not-just-graphics, are.

Well, right or wrong are "generally" cultural values and not absolute values.

Talking about right or wrong, i bought sins of a solar empire and i didn't like it (no time to play multiplayer unfortunately), is it right that i can't get my money back for something I didn't like?

No it's more like saying. If you drive a vehicle you WILL have violated a traffic law. You WILL have at some point gone at least 1 mph over the speed limit even if you are the most careful driver. You will have parked too far from the curb at some point. You will have waited too short a time at a stop sign. You will have not used your blinker to signal a lane change for the proscribed amount of time.



I'm not saying that I'm saying to those who want to treat copyright infringers the same as people who steal tangible items or who make no difference between the two.

Well if you want to make it theft then there cannot be by definition any provisions of 'fair use'. (which btw is so narrow as to not exist in the caselaw anymore.)I mean how would I have any ability to 'fairly use' a bag of chips or a car if I don't tell the owners of those items that I'm going to be using them?

Here is title 17 of the US code Chapter 501 (a small snippet)

(a) Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner as provided by sections 106 through 122 or of the author as provided in section 106A(a), or who imports copies or phonorecords into the United States in violation of section 602, is an infringer of the copyright or right of the author, as the case may be.

then there is section 106-122... Basically every right under the sun is given to copyright holders.

=============

Here is title 17

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/

==============

Copyright law is like traffic law. If you use the internet you WILL violate someone's copyright no matter what you do or how carefully you search. Theft requires a specific act of will. You have to choose to steal a bag of chips or a car or a CD. You can infringe copyright same as you can give a car too much gas and go over the speed limit. And the law parses no difference between actual acts "I'm going to DL this song/game even though I know I should be paying for it." and unknowing acts "Hey this sfx is pretty neat! I'll DL it to use in my powerpoint!" (of course said sound fx is copyrighted and you just infringed) "Hey this news article is informative. I'll copy/paste it into an e-mail to send to my friends as a heads up!" (You just infringed copyright).

I have no idea how they would inforce something like that. I mean, piracy is a problem because hackers are clever and find ways around things like copy protection. Do you really think you're going to keep them off the internet?

Good, they made the dam thing.



All 229 does, and similar posts is dance round the edges, as most of the thread does. I'm still waiting, and suspect will be forever, for any logical case that disproves the fundamental right of the originator/inventor to have control over the results of their labours, and be rewarded for other peoples use of those endeavours.

Someone give a clear concise case for the abolition of the right of originators / inventors to have control over their original invention/design/creation. In thirty years of listening to this kind of "discussion" in the IT world, I've not met it yet.

There is plenty of attacks on how that provision is enacted and upheld, some of it pretty spurious to say the least, but whatever the validity of the comparison argument that is drawn on consequence and enforcement, relative to other laws - the argument put forward always dodges the fundamental question.

Anything outside that fundamental question is Fluff and smoke screen, that is actually for an enforcement discussion. It does not cut it as establishing the baseline principle for the abolition of protection for IP and original invention/design/creation which the opponents of IP protection (etc) are trying to justify.

Regards
Zy

*claps*

Nice Strawman there. Where do I say copyright holders shouldn't enjoy profit from their labors... I do not nor will I ever say that...

However copyright holders cannot have the same rights as holders of tangible property because the nature of intellectual property and tangible property are fundamentally different. Only a few people can enjoy a car at any one time. A car company uses a ton of labor, parts, and materials to build a car and once they use those parts they cannot use them to build another car unless the first is recycled. And even more importantly if a car is sold the person who built the car has no rights over the person who bought it.

Now look at IP. Look at the EULA. Look at the DMCA. You pay $50 for a game and yet somehow you have no rights over it except those the copyright holder graciously extends to you! In the case of Stardock that's a pretty good amount but look at M$, Ubisoft, EA, and etc... You have no rights or recourse for ANYTHING! They can snoop on your computer. They can brand you as a potential pirate and they can wiretap your computer without any suspicion whatsoever!

A copyright holder has rights because he made the thing and can/should control its distribution to an extent but he should NOT have all the absolute rights he has based on the law over people who have paid money to purchase that product. A copyright holder should not have the right to snoop without any evidence. A copyright holder should not have the right to force a person who has paid for his product to install destructive and invasive software and the purchaser should have the right to remove that invase crap if he wants to. And yet the law gives them all those rights far above and beyond what even owners of tangible property can get

Going back to a bag of chips. Imagine if after you have bought those chips Frito Lay called you up and said we are revoking your 'license' to eat those chips and if you do you will be sued. Imagine if Frito Lay also attached a clause that said only you could eat those chips, you could not share them with another... Imagine if Ford said that only you could drive their car and they were installing an extra 'key' on their cars that had a GPS locator and if you went outside a certain area they could shut your car down without warning. Or that you COULD NOT sell your car ever. Or that if your car had brake problems they would get around to fixing it 'eventually' but that if you tried at all to fix the problem yourself you would be going to jail.

Well... Ford and Frito Lay don't have those rights. Copyright holders do even over the people who have purchased products from them aka paid money. Now a lot of them make some sense but many of those rights don't especially when enforced against people and not corporations or real counterfeiters/pirates.

The problem is the absolute imbalance and its incredible impracticality in the real world. Copyright holders have rights over end users (aka people who PAY MONEY). Because even when you PAY MONEY you don't 'own' a piece of IP... Stardock or Sony or Warner Bros. and etc does still own it. But you should have some rights. Right now you have virtually none except the ones that are grudgingly given to you and for those grudging rights you have to accept, are forced to accept, a whole lot of corporate control over you. And if you don't like it well you'll be sued if you try to remove any of that big brother control. The govn't has to get a warrant and probable cause to search or survey you. And now I'm supposed to accept that some corporation that has no obligation to anyone but its shareholders can have that equivalent while I have no recourse!?

Actually I've rethought it. I would WELCOME criminalizing ALL forms of copyright violation. Because then I would get my constitutional rights back rather than be forced to give them up in some boilerplate that gives Disney/M$/EA or etc. an absolute right to barge in with no evidence whatsoever and pry... So yeah please make copyright infringement a crime equal to theft.

Well said, ten out of ten.

If we get "general" agreement, then we could start an enforcement thread, as we would then know what we are discussing/enforcing.

At that point I'm out the door faster than ferret down a rabbit hole because thats going to be a cracker involving an army of Lawyers, and Constitutional experts to an extent my frail body would wither and die under the sheer weight of ...

..... whatever

(anyhow being a Brit, US enforcement is none of my business)

Regards
Zy

Yes. I'd seriously like it if it was the govn't handing these matters and not corporates suits. I want my rights back.

Just don't be surprised when everyone who has ever used the internet gets indicted under the current laws.

A few years ago Google got sued over its image search, which is basically just a giant copyright infringement program. The courts ruled for Google based on 'well it really is against the law but we like it so we're going to let it stay.' They should have ruled against it.

The best way to change a bad law is to enforce it and imo enforcing copyright laws would get a whole lot of bad laws changed or thrown out really quickly.

That may well be the case, if so that would be a good thing. The main aspect of agreement on the principle of IP etc, and then (only then) moving onto enforcement, is that the thought process would be focused on one aim:

"How do we make this work in an imperfect world, that as far as is humanly practical, is in line with our Core principles of Law".

That's a whole new discussion that produces different - unified - motivations, discussions and outcomes. That may well result in your hopes, who knows until the debate happens. No Country will ever get perfection in any Law, particularly its enforcement, that's impractical Utopia, but we can get closer to that, with all pulling in the same direction.

A car designer may conceive a great new Ford as the next one on the Production line, but he's kinda stuffed if the workforce insist on debating how they are going to build a Honda.

Regards
Zy

Good thing it would mean the things like say game prices and music CDs will go down.

But its pretty much impossible to enforce.

And the bad part is that is would nerf but English subbed Japanese's anime. I,d end up having to wait years in some case for anime now instead of hours and to boot it would be terrible. Dubbing companies alway take longer to dub then ti take the jap to produce the episode. And the prices they sell I couldn't watch them all. Plus they most fot he time make a terrible job at subbing. And when ever TV compagnies try to open an anime only channel the CRTC says it is not allowable since a minimum of 15% or some shit like that needs to be of local content.

So on one side YAY, on the other BOOOOO

Prices won't come down. Companies will charge what the market will bear. If they think that's $50 it's $50... If it's $20 it's $20...

Stardock's prices are certainly cheaper. If the demand increases dramatically (meaning a lot more people buy the games), then more competing games will be made and they will get cheaper to make. People will invest more in them.

People will only pay a certain amount for a game. If "they" think it's worth $50, it's because enough of "you" think it's $50 for them to make profit that way.

EA has invested an unholy amount of money in SPORE. The game would never have been made if A LOT of people weren't willing to pay $50 for something like it.

Nominal prices in euros are equal as nominal prices in $ (often even for digital distributions).

that says everything about the who has the most power to fix prices in the supply/demand curve.

What people don't understand is that "each" game is a monopoly on itself, as such, the publishers have much more power to define prices that what would be good economic outcome. (more isn't necessarily better).

As such, no amount of piracy or lack thereof will ever have any significant effect on prices.