qwertyytrewq wrote:

I just wanted to state that I find entitlement mentality pirates annoying and my main argument is that the main reason pirates download something isn't because the original thing is too expensive. It isn't because of perceived injustice in the financial compensation to artists. It isn't because the "distribution system" is imperfect. They just download because they can.

i agree with this to some extent... of course most people download pirated stuff "because they can".

But i don't think that's the full story either. If certain changes happened, "even though i can" i wouldn't do it. I'd rather support the people who entertain me.

Lets see... what do i use that's pirated...

* I've used megavideo for television series (specifically American ones), because they aren't offered online any other way. For British TV series though, i always use the BBC / C4 iplayers though, despite the horribly annoying ads. And i could watch them pirated in other places, even so.

* I've also watched films online or torrented them... i've never really bought many films in the 1st place, and would rather rent them. Again, there's no online agency that rents streamed video (in Britain) [EDIT: just found out that Netflix launched in the UK this month, so if i want to watch something in English, i'll do it from there from now.]. If there was, and it rented streamed Japanese films with Japanese subtitles, i'd jump all over the chance to pay a reasonable amount for that.

* I've downloaded tons of Japanese stuff from D-Addicts, and watched a ton on Chinese sites. D-Addicts is great because it has japanese subs. I prefer streaming though because i can access it whenever i want, i don't generally rewatch things, and more recently it has versions with Japanese subs too. If i want to watch japanese shows, i'm not paying ridiculous amounts of money and waiting 6 weeks for shipping. If i had to do that, i just wouldn't watch them, tbh.

* I've downloaded and read Japanese books from the Japanese books thread. I probably feel strongest about supporting authors, so i also buy real books. (e.g. i've bought a copy of 村上春樹の「世界の終わりとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド」 despite the fact that i'm reading it from that downloaded pack and not from the book. But i'd only go that far with an author i really liked, not other stuff i've read like 東野圭吾。
On the other hand, the moment the publishing companies get of their backsides and make a deal with Amazon, i'll never read a pirated book again (providing they don't try to charge ridiculous fees and so on).

* i don't buy music, just watch it on youtube usually. I'm happy to support bands who use advertising there though. I think music is hard to support with a normal model, because by it's nature you can consume soooo much of it, and basically have to to find stuff you really love. So i think using short ads on videos is fine. I use Spotify for the same purpose, and like the business model they use.

So yeah, i do it because i can, but there's still things that if they changed would make me stop. I think it's the same situation for most reasonable people, though of course there'll always be some people who'll carry on doing it just cos they can. So i don't think these things are pointless from the standpoint of lobbying.

About the "publishing companies are dickheads" argument..... yes, they are. But i don't think it's fully possible yet to do without them. I wish they wouldn't be quite so populist, and generally find independant stuff higher quality. But even with independant stuff, they'll trawl through piles of shit to pick out the good stuff, i think. I prefer someone to do it for me than do it myself. Also, there's the branding thing. I know when i'm in the mood for an Artificial Eye film and when i'm in the mood for a Warner Brothers movie. There should be an internet equivalent of that, i guess.

Last edited by IceCream (2012 January 24, 12:55 am)

btw, does anyone know of a Japanese Netflix equivalent (that's reasonably priced & accepts foreign debit cards)?

So how does it follow that slow distribution of anime equals a free pass to steal it instead?

ON COPYRIGHT

Bread upon the waters. Eat and let the others die of hunger.

Mummy, was I downloaded?
No, you were born, sweetheart.
Daddy says I was downloaded.
Who downloaded you?
Daddy did. He asked OUR MOTHER, THE INTERNET and she searched for me. She said my name wasn't Public Domain and she had to hunt.
Did she shoot you?
She did. With http isohunt dot com.


Books belong to people who haven’t read them (yet).

kainzero wrote:

too many ifs.
if a million people? where are these people from? how old are they? do they have their own income?
what if they like the movie and contribute to the hype on opening weekend?

Digging around I haven't been able to find any studies really that have looked at anything beyond music & downloaders. Its a study I already knew about though which shows that downloading does seem to lead to more purchasing of music, which I don't think is too hard to believe really.
The only thing on movies is a study done with French college students back in '06 that says that downloading movies led to more consumption which was mostly in the form of renting. Regression models basically showed that through renting that really stuff evens out between d/led and rented.

Until I see otherwise from a study. I'm going to stick to the belief that people that know how to use a computer and get movies off DDL sites or torrents; are going to be chronic downloaders of movies, tv shows, and anime. Most of them probably wouldn't bother to buy any of the stuff if it suddenly vanished from the net and could only be gotten through physical media. I think you could sway many of these people to pay somewhat for the media if you provided it in cheap and easy to access means; such as streaming through Netflix.

On the point about hype. I don't consider it valid within the context. Anyone thats d/ling and simple saying "Well, after I see it, if its good, I'll tell all my friends and family about it! So its like advertising and they'll go to the cinema." It still contributes to the Tragedy of the Commons point.

off the top of my head? one: azumanga daioh. it's not even a bluray, it's a dvd set. i've also bought plenty of dvd sets in the past, paying through the nose for them. and then they come out in HD in bluray for $30 because apparently anime is cheap nowadays.

That's good to hear.

there were also plenty of unlicensed series where i had to go out of my way to purchase toys and the like. this was also 4-5 years ago when i watched anime. i wonder what you have to say about all those naruto fans who "freeload" the anime online but then buy all the other paraphernalia, something i've seen.

This sounds way to much like justifying your actions. "I download it and never buy it, but I'll buy a T-Shirt and action figure!" This still very likely contributes to the Tragedy of Commons. Even if on the off chance that licensing for memorabilia is tied in with licensing for broadcasting; its only by happenstance and could easily be two separate contracts.

i think the problem with the anime/manga industry in the US is that they failed to keep up with the internet and availability, instead relying on their increasingly slow distribution. even major conventions had featured guests for shows that hadn't been licensed yet, gee, i wonder how people became their fans?

In other words piracy happens because people have a high sense of self-endowment and believe everything must be here NOW.

DISCLAIMER: I'm mostly playing devils advocate in this whole situation. However I do recognize that the current system could be in danger of mass restructuring do to rising cost on production, expectations from viewers, and a 'tragedy of the commons' with the younger generations.

-------
EDIT

Jarvik7 wrote:

Hulu has a Japanese version. No business at all in Japan will accept a foreign debit card though, since debit payment doesn't exist in Japan (the closest thing is 自動振込み).

You're better off getting an American account and a vpn to use it through though. Hulu here costs like $20-25/month and has less content, while in the US it's free (w/ ads).

Re: anti piracy people in this thread

It has been shown repeatedly in stats and studies that heavy pirates also spend more money than average people buying content. I for one spent a LOT of money on videogames ($8k+ per year) when I was still active in the ROM scene.

The idea that one pirated file = one lost sale is a complete fallacy.

Pay can compete with free by offering better service. Why pirate crap when you can get an all you can eat netflix account for next to nothing?

Many businesses online though will probably take credit card though. Most debit cards in the states act like hybrid credit cards so they would work.

I've only ran across two studies that support the claim that pirates buy more, but most of these studies are in the area of music. I'd love to see studies about pirating and purchasing habits of people that download lots of tv shows, games, movies etc.

Up till recently NetFlix and many other services were ok for streaming, but now that content providers are starting to realize the cash cow that could be streaming; many of them refused to resign contracts with Netflix for as cheap as they did originally. Either streaming services are going to become even more stupidly expensive than what they are now (or limited on how much you can view), or we can expect to see 100s of small content streaming services pop up backed by corporate content owners trying to vie for subscribers.

Last edited by vix86 (2012 January 24, 4:22 am)

I love it how the anti-piracy types here are characterizing the other side as freeloaders with a sense of entitlement, when it's the IP defenders who feel they are entitled to big brother's help protecting their precious ideas at tax-payer expense...

And all the people trying to explain how artists/writers can still make money are missing the point entirely. There is no need to provide an alternative to replace the crumbling monopolies because no one should be entitled to profit from their ideas except under a one-sided system that depends on violation of the others sides rights.

Last edited by nadiatims (2012 January 24, 5:56 am)

Yeah, your arguments here don't make sense to me nadiatims.  I understand that you disagree, but you don't seem to even be acknowledging the arguments on the other side.

You're proposing a world where you can never make money with your ideas or creativity and then failing to explain why that world would be preferable.

Last edited by Tzadeck (2012 January 24, 6:13 am)

nadiatims wrote:

allow me to just point out, that ideas still got created long before the invention of copyright laws (just ask shakespeare, da vinci, aristotle, confucious...etc)

Ok, I agree with this. This is why I'm against copyright laws and in favour of Creative Commons and GPL licenses.

But, still, I can't see a world where people don't make money out of their ideas. In fact, I think they SHOULD make money out of them and that these alternatives to copyright are actually able to create a system where more businesses and people benefit from development, research and exchange of ideas, in a much freer and fairer environment, not strangled by monopolies and narrow-minded, profit-only driven market dictatorship.

@nadiatims
Police are a worthwhile use of tax money because in addition to protecting shopkeepers, they also protect thieves?  What?

You seem to have ignored every counterargument I made to your posts and just steamed on repeating yourself.  You continue to say that copyright only provides a one-sided benefit to those who sell creative works, so I'll just repost this here:

JimmySeal wrote:

Copyright protects the artists who can expect some remuneration for the creation of a quality work, the publishers who pay the artists for the right to produce and distribute it, and the consumers who can enjoy quality work thanks to the protection provided by copyright.  Copyright provides a very real benefit to nearly all taxpayers.

I personally think it would suck to be in a system where writers and musicians can only create stuff in their free time because they can't sell it.  Yes, there would still be people who make good stuff for the heck of it, but there would be a lot less.  I'll bet you anything that Harry Potter would not exist if J.K. Rowling had to write those books out of the goodness of her heart.

nadiatims wrote:

(just ask shakespeare, da vinci, aristotle, confucious...etc)

What a bunch of horrible examples.

Shakespeare wrote plays for his acting troupe, not published works.  He made money off of performances, not books.

Leonardo da Vinci did spend some of his free time inventing...things that didn't work.

Aristotle was a philosopher.  His written works were a secondary by-product of his profession.  The same goes for Confucius.

Last edited by JimmySeal (2012 January 24, 7:15 am)

I am basically a total freeloader so I'm not trying to be moral about this or anything and I'm sure I would be castigated if I went into detail about my profligate netlife.

I'm just wondering if anyone has any statistics on how many percent of all, say, Americans are able to make a living on music and how that number has fluctuated over the years? I get the feeling that what has really changed recently, if anything, is how rich the richest artists get and also how much money the companies make on music that has been around for years (I have made it a policy to ALWAYS download music by artists that are already dead or so famous that neither popularity nor money will be a problem in their lives unless they do some kind of royal fuckup, for example Beatles' music). Meanwhile the artists that really need the money and backing are mostly doing just as bad as they have been for a long, long time, I'd wager.

And really, that's the thing I guess, the 'music industry' is such a wide THING that it's hard to condemn them all or say that they need to be protected. There are some elements within the music industry that are made up of greedy bastards, including many 'corrupt' artists, and lumping them all together is a big mistake when we as consumers do it, and a dirty tactic when guys like the RIAA do it.

Tzadeck wrote:

Is this an "I'm annoyed that I have to respond again" sigh?  Because if it is, perhaps you could just post your position in a coherent organized fashion instead?

I was sighing that everyone seems to think that the profitability of ideas hinges on monopolistic privilege (it doesn't). I don't think my posts have been any less coherent or lacking in evidence than anyone else's. No one else has explained why exactly making money from idea creation requires IP law, it's just presented as fact.

JimmySeal wrote:

Police are a worthwhile use of tax money because in addition to protecting shopkeepers, they also protect thieves?  What?

my point was that compared to IP-laws, the idea of having a tax funded police force is at least somewhat fair as it provides (or at least should provide) a service to all of society (whether a state monopoly on the use of force is actually desirable or not is a whole other thread). IP laws on the other hand were invented as a way of protecting publishers from competition. It is just a commonly held delusion that they were invented to benefit all of society, or that they actually achieve that aim.

JimmySeal wrote:

I personally think it would suck to be in a system where writers and musicians can only create stuff in their free time because they can't sell it.  Yes, there would still be people who make good stuff for the heck of it, but there would be a lot less.  I'll bet you anything that Harry Potter would not exist if J.K. Rowling had to write those books out of the goodness of her heart.

Where is your evidence that writers and musicians can only make money with the existence of IP laws or your reasons for them being entitled to? Is a farmer who grows an unpopular crop entitled to profit from it? If someone comes up with a profitable business model are they entitled to tax-payer funded protection for competition? IP laws do not ensure that people can profit from idea creation. There are plenty of writers who can't get published and bands that can't get record deals. Publishers and record labels form contracts with or buy the IP of creators from whom they can profit. They are then granted a monopoly on the non-scarce commodity they have acquired, allowing increased profits to the the publisher or record company. As for Harry Potter, who knows? Rowling could still write the book, and then form a contract with a publisher. If upon reading it, they think it's worth publishing, they pay Rowling the agreed sum and print a batch of the books at low cost and enjoy the benefit of being first to market. If the publisher says the book is rubbish and doesn't pay Rowling but then publish it anyway, she sues them for breach of contract.



JimmySeal wrote:

Shakespeare wrote plays for his acting troupe, not published works.  He made money off of performances, not books.


Either way he was paid to generate ideas because they obviously were good enough to generate a return on investment.

vix86 wrote:

Even considering this. Shakespeare created and performed for money. Da vinci and many of the great artists of the Renaissance had many of their famous works commissioned. And as was pointed out by others, everyone you listed there in your short list were either aristocrats or supported heavily by the aristocracy of their day. So many still relied heavily on money to able to create works so freely.

exactly, there was money to be made from idea generation even before the invention of IP law. Those days, artworks costed more to produce (marble statues, oil paintings etc) and only aristocrats could afford them. What's your point exactly?

Last edited by nadiatims (2012 January 24, 9:01 am)

nadiatims wrote:

JimmySeal wrote:

Police are a worthwhile use of tax money because in addition to protecting shopkeepers, they also protect thieves?  What?

my point was that compared to IP-laws, the idea of having a tax funded police force is at least somewhat fair as it provides (or at least should provide) a service to all of society

Shopkeepers + theives does not equal "all of society" any more than Publishers + artists does. (Though JimmySeal's already provided arguments why they benefit consumers too).

Your point before was that a tax funded police force shouldn't be used to stop theft of ideas (regardless of whether publishers are shit or not), and your argument still doesn't show why they should protect goods any more than ideas now. Plenty of corporations that sell goods are also money grabbing profiteering shits, publishers aren't alone in that.

nadiatims wrote:

Where is your evidence that writers and musicians can only make money with the existence of IP laws or your reasons for them being entitled to? Is a farmer who grows an unpopular crop entitled to profit from it? If someone comes up with a profitable business model are they entitled to tax-payer funded protection for competition? IP laws do not ensure that people can profit from idea creation. There are plenty of writers who can't get published and bands that can't get record deals. Publishers and record labels form contracts with or buy the IP of creators from whom they can profit. They are then granted a monopoly on the non-scarce commodity they have acquired, allowing increased profits to the the publisher or record company. As for Harry Potter, who knows? Rowling could still write the book, and then form a contract with a publisher. If upon reading it, they think it's worth publishing, they pay Rowling the agreed sum and print a batch of the books at low cost and enjoy the benefit of being first to market. If the publisher says the book is rubbish and doesn't pay Rowling but then publish it anyway, she sues them for breach of contract.



Right, Copyright laws don't ensure that people can profit from idea creation. Laws against stealing goods from shops don't ensure that a shop will turn out to be profitable either. What's your point here?

We're also not talking about unpopular products here. We're talking about popular products that are being used without the authors being paid for them. We're not talking about being protected from competition either. Creative products are obviously competing against one another. That's a good thing, because it raises quality right? (well, they're not competing if nobody pays for them.) But, why should a product have to compete against itself...?? That makes no sense... what good comes out of that sort of competetion??

Fine, make an argument against copyright for publishing companies if you want, but at the very least don't you think that having copyright laws for the artists themselves is fair enough?

I'm not sure what model you think could be profitable if free copying and distribution was perfectly legal...? Why would people buy that book when there'll be a digital copy online instantly that they can download for free? And if the publisher says the book is rubbish and doesn't pay Rowling, there is no contract to sue them under. They can still publish it, because there's no copyright law. (Not that they'd want to, because people'll just download it for free).

And finally, it's NOT A NON SCARCE COMMODITY JUST BECAUSE THERE ARE DIGITAL COPIES. The "commodity" is the creative work, not the copy of it. That means it IS scarce, and should be recognised as such.

nadiatims wrote:

vix86 wrote:

Even considering this. Shakespeare created and performed for money. Da vinci and many of the great artists of the Renaissance had many of their famous works commissioned. And as was pointed out by others, everyone you listed there in your short list were either aristocrats or supported heavily by the aristocracy of their day. So many still relied heavily on money to able to create works so freely.

exactly, there was money to be made from idea generation even before the invention of IP law. Those days, artworks costed more to produce (marble statues, oil paintings etc) and only aristocrats could afford them. What's your point exactly?

The point is that most of us don't want a society where the only people who are creating stuff are aristocrats. It's bad for creativity (or competition between creative works if you prefer).

[sorry for slight incoherancy, i'm tired.]

Last edited by IceCream (2012 January 24, 9:48 am)