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Don't fear the pirates

KEN HUNT

Globe and Mail Update

Latest comment posted at 4:51 PM EDT 18/06/08

Illegal downloaders of music and movies are at the forefront of technology—and it's time the industries caught up. ...Read the full article

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  1. Some Guy from Canada writes: LOL! Meghann Marco just gained another fan. HAHA
  2. Kevin Henning from Canada writes: I suspect there may be a few issues at play here. First of all, while I agree that in the long term the piracy may in fact help the publishing companies (I separate them from the recording industry), they do not currently seem to be following a long term vision. There are short term impacts to the profitability of the publishing companies, which in the end affect the executives (via their stock option plans and bonuses), and often the shareholders, which these days seem to be more important to those affected than the long term viability of a company (sometimes you have to spend money to make money).

    One of the things that I have also noted is a tendency to try to shut down the promotional mechanisms that can be used by an independent artist, film producer, what have you. If successful, this may have the effect of forcing more of those independents to go through the major publishing houses. Given the tendency to deal with what is currently popular and therefore generating the most revenue, it can reduce the choices available to the consumer.
  3. Gordon Murray from Canada writes: All students really need is to get the texts onto Google space before printing them out.
    "Do you have a quick delete button on your PDA for specifically those texts quite possibly copyrighted?
    Please sign our petition towards such buttons being reasonable add-ons, counter this government's repeatedly printed position."
  4. D K from Canada writes: Well this article worked. I'm looking up Meghan Marco now.
  5. Purple Tory from Alberta, Canada writes: The big movie/music cartels will not catch up. Why? Because they're too busy bribing politicians to pass draconian American-style DMCA laws. Instead of making their products available online, conveniently and without DRM, they release files that can only be used on one computer or other such arbitrary restrictions. Then, using the law they bribed politicians to pass, they start suing would-be customers who use more convenient pirated sources, and lobby to get them thrown in jail.

    Finally, they wonder why they're not making any money. Then they sue more would-be customers, bribe more politicians, and continue whining to the news media about how they aren't making any money. Rinse, repeat, retarded.

    Right now the Conservative Party is trying to pass a law like the DMCA in the United States. This law would take away your rights to copy a legally purchased CD to an iPod, something currently legal under "Fair Use", among many other things. The law is being drafted with the interests of the media cartels in mind (thanks to large CA$H donations), and will harm normal Canadians. Could you imagine having a relative serve jail time for downloading a song? That's what the Conservatives are proposing.
  6. Jan Steinman from Salt Spring Island, Canada writes: Wait a minute... doesn't a portion of the sale of cassette tapes, CD-ROMs, and DVDs already go to the publishing industry, to pay for consumer copying?

    Is it safe to assume that if consumer copying, currently legal due to the "tax" on blank media, becomes illegal under some sort of DMCA clone, that the publishing industry will give back the money they've collected on sales of blank media?

    I didn't think so.
  7. Alex Yaxmos from Canada writes: Stop the pirates that try to sell software/music/movies for a profit. Students and personal users will eventaully buy the software if they like it.
  8. Peter Paszek from London, Canada writes: WOW!
    This was truly a great read, the writer made some fantastic points.
    Kudos!
  9. TheDaveShow DotCom from Okanagan, Canada writes: To Jan Steinman, the tax on blank media only covers "personal copying for personal use." Means, the recording artists are getting paid for you being allowed to make a backup copy of your own music, or taking one track from each of eight different legally owned CDs and putting them on your own audio mix CD, or dumping all your audio CDs onto your Ipod.

    Doesn't try to pay artists for you taking your CDs and giving copies to your friends.

    I like the balance brought out in this story, but disagree that piracy has any benefits to artists. It has benefits to artists who ALLOW such copying.

    No one here would want to spend weeks and months working, say, in a garden, and let someone else eat the veggies.

    I bet no one posting here would consider going to WalMart and just pocketing stuff and walking out. It's surprising to me how many people don't see that piracy is doing just that.

    On the other hand, if shoplifting were as hard to catch as music piracy, probably more people would be doing it.
  10. K Kal from Canada writes: good point about big software like photoshop

    if the aspiring student wants to use the program to make a living, he/she will have to buy it eventually. only puts adobe out of income until the student wants to use it for making themselves money. and really thats what the program's main purpose is, to help one make a living.

    good point also about inferior software, why use some photoshop ripoff when you can use the best?
  11. Scott Kinoshita from London, Canada writes: Fantastic article!!

    To counter-point the DaveShow -- there is a world of difference between veggies (physical) and music/movies/prose (intellectual). If you eat a vegetable -- stolen or not -- it is gone. You may talk about how good it was, but this does not feed anyone else. Nobody else can really benefit from your eating the vegetable. Nor does it matter whose vegetable you ate (provided nobody's using hormones or poisons). You alter the vegetable into energy for your body and once that's done, it's gone.

    Intellectual items on the other hand, alters YOU. You benefit from this intellectual item, and you can share it with others. Provided you give credit where credit is due, the creator benefits from an increase reputation and fame. Using the vegetable analogy, after you eat the veggie you start sprouting it yourself (and following credit being given, these veggies have the creator's stamp on them). When you share the veggies with others, people know who was the original source, and they sprout them too. Because they benefit, they will want to support the creator's efforts to continue to grow new and different veggies... er... ideas.

    Intellectual property is not the same as physical property. Ideas work best when shared. I think the real problem is: how do you properly compensate the creator of the idea without restricting the idea's growth?

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