Just a note regarding most of the piracy discussion I have seen take place on HN in the last day or so: everyone who refers to internet piracy as theft is doing a disservice to the argument. They can call it immoral, dangerous, or harmful, but it to equate it with theft is just not accurate.
The people who most frequently refer to internet piracy as theft/stealing are the ones who want to censor the internet and pay off congress. I hope that, regardless of where they stand on the piracy issue, HN users can be a little more articulate about why piracy is or is not permissible and stop referring to it inaccurately.
Oh please, I actually find it rather convenient. I know I don't have to take anybody who equates copyright violation with theft seriously. Anyone who uses deceitful propaganda and newspeak to hide the truth is obviously not interested in a serious discussion about piracy and copyright law, but is only looking to demonize their opponents to further their own cause. It's like religious fundamentalists that equate homosexuality with child abuse.
It's far more than just being semantically "inaccurate". Anyone who equates piracy with theft is being deliberately and fundamentally dishonest, and is only interested in waving their propaganda about instead of having an open debate.
Really? I'm starting to feel the opposite: that these arguments by definition are getting tedious and deliberately miss the point. In much the same vein as the "marriage is only between a man and woman" variety.
The English verb "to steal" is certainly capable of meaning "to take without the right" regardless of whether physical property is involved. Not to mention the myriad of common idioms, like "So-and-so stole my idea." What else are people trying to express by its use in this case?
It's clear that the issue here is their legal right to exclusive distribution and transmission (or "state granted monopoly", if you prefer) of their work, not whether or not they "still have a copy". It can be disagreed with, but they have it and others distributing their work without permission diminishes it.
Not saying I disagree with you that it's the wrong way to go about things, but, I think if one is being honest, the argument over the use of word is telling on both sides and that some people are clearly trying to demonize those who use the word, in the same way that they feel they are being demonized by its use against them.
Of course piracy is like theft in one way (you get something for free without compensating the author), however its not in another (unlike smashing a window and taking a diamond ring, nobody loses a diamond ring - or a window).
I don't get one thing with internet culture not refering to intelectual property as a real property and its theft as not a real theft.
If copyright theft was not theft, the whole GNU and Free Software movement wouldn't exist. As author of software licenced under GNU GPL, you say "this is free, but because I am the author and I have copyright, if you want to use it in your software, you must also release the code under GNU."
If you say copyright theft is not theft, any software company can go and use GNU code, include it in their proprietary code and re-sell it. And because you also imply that we should give up on copyright enforcement, they would get away with it.
Same goes for the intellectual "property" rights. Mixing together three completely different areas of law (copyright, patents and trademarks) is bad enough; implying they are related to physical property rights is unforgivable: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
If I build a factory at great personal cost, but the materials and electricity to produce the goods cost next to nothing, is it theft if people take these goods without my permission? I don't see the difference between this and intellectual property.
You say it is not accurate but don't provide anything substantial to back up your claim. Instead you use a logical fallacy: because these persons are bad, thus the argument of using term "theft" is bad.
Why are people suddenly embracing this argument that piracy isn't theft?
People work to create music just like people work to mine the earth to produce coal. Should one not get paid just because what they're producing can't be physically held?
"...what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls
become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching
movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat."
---
I try to minimize the exposure of my kids to the plastic reality of disney - but it is nearly impossible. The system for indoctrinating girls into the consumption servitude archetype is insidiously powerful.
It is threaded in our society and very very hard to avoid.
The argument of efficiency is stupid. Of course I can do a better job distributing hot dogs than the hot dog guy if I just put out a massive table of hot dogs I got for free and let people run up and grab one without paying for it. But that model doesn't work if I have to pay for my hot dogs.
If you invest millions of dollars in movies or a music album, you have to charge money to make it back. As we can see from Spotify and others, ad supported models do not pay enough to cover the high costs of creating expensive products. But of course alternative revenue is enough to pay for the costs of selling something that doesn't belong to you and costs nothing for you to distribute. And once you have to charge, of course people will prefer to get it where they don't have to pay. It has little to do with convenience. The number one thing that will impact the conversion rate on a shopping cart funnel (besides SSN) is asking for a credit card, regardless of how few seconds it takes to fill it out. People are wary of putting their card in online, they're lazy, and they're cheap. You're not more efficient, you're just catering to the lowest common denominator of people.
There is virtually no reason why companies could not distribute products the way TPB does, except that they'd still have to charge money for those products. The minute you do that, someone who gives away hot dogs they didn't pay for wins. To pretend like it's some noble effort is a joke. You earn your livings off the backs of people who make things people want. Try charging your users for the things you offer and see how long your "more efficient" platform does well.
Sure, people will go on and on about how they get higher quality files, whole discographies in one click, and blah blah blah. Most people do not do that and they still pirate things. Taking things you didn't pay for and selling them cheaper than someone who did is not more efficient. Just start calling a spade a spade so we can move on and talk like adults.
Digital content isn't exactly like a hot dog, so let's assume that you could design a magical hot dog which, once created, you can copy many times with no other costs. You have an unlimited supply of hot dogs, and each one of these hot dogs, being an exact copy of the original, can also be used to magically make more hot dogs.
Now I'm not saying that this hot dog is free - it cost a LOT in R&D to produce this hot dog, and you invested a lot in it. The other thing is that hot dogs go with buns, and there's sadly no magical buns in this universe. Each and every bun has to be created, and costs money.
So you set up your hot dog stand, selling magical hot dogs with non-magical buns. You charge a premium rate because you're the only guy in town who managed to make a magical hot dog of this quality, and with it's unique flavour. Besides, the buns are still costing you money, and they have to come from somewhere.
Now you notice some guy has found out that the magical hot dog you sold him can make new hot dogs at no cost, but they don't have the buns attached. As a response, you start baking the hot dogs into the bread - it makes it harder to get the hot dog out, and you think that that's the end of it. But the guy realises that with a bit of effort, he can get the hot dog out of the bread too, because what's the point of a hot dog if you can't get at it? Baking the hot dog into the bread is costing you even more, and making it harder for people to get to the hot dog.
Soon you have some people coming up to you and asking if they can have seeded bread, or maybe gluten free, or maybe they just hate bread and want it on it's own. Some of them want to buy just your hot dog and put it on their own bread. But if you start selling them hot dogs by themselves, won't they just start handing out free hot dogs to all their friends? That would be a disaster! So your answer is no! Hot dogs come baked into bread, and by now you've convinced the mayor to make it illegal to take your hot dogs out of the bread. People should just learn to love your bread!
So how's the guy who took your hot dog out of it's bread going? He's still giving away hot dogs for free, and what's worse is that he's telling everyone he gives one to to give them away, too. It's costing him nothing to do because he doesn't have to pay for bread. Sure, some people are still coming to you because they actually like the bread, but mostly the people coming to you are asking about bread-free options, and are still willing to pay. Most of the people going to the guy who's giving out hot dogs for free never bought anything from you, and some of them don't even eat the hot dogs. Sure, you see a few of your old customers going to him instead, but mostly the people going to him either never came to you, or (after tasting the free hot dog) later come to you to buy a genuine one in bread.
The point isn't that the guy giving away free hot dogs isn't a jerk. He is. The point is that you're stubbornly refusing to let people pay for a hot dog how they want it, in a way that costs you less (because you don't have to adjust the price for the bread - you just have to cover your costs, rather than incurring new ones).
You're doing this in an attempt to stop people doing what they're already doing. People don't want to rip you off - they just want to be able to pick their own bread.
To break from the analogy now, I was happily a pirate because it was difficult for me to get what I wanted how I wanted and there was no technical reason why it wasn't available. Sure, if I wanted all my movies as flip-books, then there's a technical reason why that doesn't make sense, but there's no technical reason stopping me from getting them as digital media files.
If I'm looking for music from a band, I will always try to find a legal channel to obtain it first. If I can't find one (and these days, it's getting pretty rare), then I'll probably pirate it. Sure, some people will pirate it anyway because they feel entitled to it, but the point is that many, many people have no problems paying for content so long as they can get it how and when they want it. This type of availability of content is pretty much what TPB seems to be about for many people. It's not about screwing content producers - it's about freedom of choice.
Anyway, that's my take on it. I know that there are people who will always choose to steal rather than pay, but most of society would happily pay if only we were allowed to.
This is discounting how much it has to do with convenience. People love Netflix's streaming service, but it's plagued by the fact that the studios are reluctant to give them access to a wider catalog (as I understand it, not a Netflix subscriber).
There are tons of examples where the MPAA/RIAA members could have switched distribution methods, but chose not to for a very long time because they are too conservative. Once they shuttered Napster, they could have paid a team to develop something similar to the iTunes music store, and organized a set of standards to govern music players with electronics companies. They could have owned the new distribution medium by ushering it in themselves. Instead they spent time on legal teams playing wack-a-mole with the pirates and lobbying various legislative bodies across the globe to try and prevent the Internet from happening. The only investment that they want to make in the future is attempting to extend the ecosystem of the past into the future as far as possible.
Yes! Thank you for laying out your opinion so intelligently and with such a perfect metaphor. It is really time for everyone to just grow up and as you so eloquently put it, "just start calling a spade a spade".
"Of course I can do a better job distributing hot dogs than the hot dog guy if I just put out a massive table of hot dogs I got for free and let people run up and grab one without paying for it. But that model doesn't work if I have to pay for my hot dogs."
I'm not arguing for the Pirate Bay, but there is an error in your logic - to make that analogy fit into an online distribution situation, you would have to postulate that you only have to pay for one hotdog, and the rest can be duplicated and distributed for close to zero cost.
Really interesting article, and I particularly like the opening paragraph. Impressed how the pirate bay stand out as having such a well reasoned stance with regard to SOPA. Much better than simply attacking the bill in my opinion.
"Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture."
>
Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures
in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call
Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent.
I don't understand -- aren't patents federally enforced?
'Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information
when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We're sorry for that.'
To me this was the best part of the entire message.
The text of the linked article, for those that do not have access to TPB (oh, the irony....):
INTERNETS, 18th of January 2012.
PRESS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.
Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for
the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person
to own the copyright to a motion picture.
Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures
in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call
Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent.
There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like
Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever.
So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they
circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: "stole") other peoples creative works,
without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they're all successful and most of the
studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations - it's all based on being
able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create.
If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing
other peoples rules.
The reason they are always complainting about "pirates" today is simple. We've done what they did. We circumvented the
rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow
people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take
over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them).
It's all based on the fact that we're competition.
We've proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We're just better than they are.
And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech.
We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws
should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.
The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe - but we've stayed out of the
USA. We have Swedish roots and a swedish friend said this:
The word SOPA means "trash" in Swedish. The word PIPA means "a pipe" in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence.
They want to make the internet inte a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the
rest of us obedient consumers.
The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you'll learn that noone wants to be fed with
trash. Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that
you will stop them, before we all drown.
SOPA can't do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we'll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the
hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to
mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really.
To fix the "problem of piracy" one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they're
creating "culture" but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls
become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching
movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat.
In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones
is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had
no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he's complainting that Google is the biggest source of piracy
in the world - because he's jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you'd get a more
honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News.
Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information
when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We're sorry for that.
I don't really understand how they can have such a radical view... If the pirate bay were to be the only media distribution system left after all of the traditional "Hollywood" corporations went out of business (b/c of the pirate bay), there would be no more movies which the pirate bay could distribute. I don't know about you guys, but I do like my movies. EDIT: Please note this was just I thought an interesting topic to think about - I by no means think this is going to happen. TPB's statement gave me the feeling that they didn't want the traditional Hollywood to exist any longer, which is why I brought this up.
Call it what you want, but what a ton of people are doing in downloading movies off the pirate bay is taking something that they haven't paid for. Maybe one can say that isn't stealing, but I find it hard to call it anything else.
Maybe I'm missing something in their stance?
EDIT: I know we're talking about the middleman and not the producing companies, but the pirate bay is still facilitating the act of taking revenues away from producers, right?
Honestly, this argument is REALLY weak. Hollywood spends millions of dollars to create these movies. To pirate it and not compensate the companies involved is irresponsible, selfish and ignorant -- it is stealing. There is is great amount of financial investment that goes into creating these movies. Today with the internet, the distribution avenue exists for people to produce and self publish, independent of Hollywood, but there is so much more to creating a successful movie: expensive sets, actors' salaries, special effects, post processing, marketing, the list goes on... In order to be successful these movies require great financial outlay and to expect the final product to be free is ridiculous. If these people really believe in free movies and music, they'd boycott Hollywood productions (they very stuff they call 'trash') and instead trade independent creations where the artist or writer chooses to give it away.
This argument is not about freedom of exchanging original ideas or even sharing bits of "copyrighted" information, it's about the wholesale stealing of movies which took a great deal of time money and effort to create, even if they are considered 'trash'. In the end, TPB and it's users only pander to the "culture" that they supposedly so despise by consuming such media, they just don't like paying for it.
The "great game" referenced (Civilization, at least the most recent version: 5), is ironically available to download on The Pirate Bay. I suppose this is not worth paying Sid Meier and the development studios he worked with to create this game either.
Pretty much the only thing I don't disagree with are the buried statements about Fox News and the media's control over the public opinion and the inhumane conditions in foreign factories.
FWIW, I OPPOSE SOPA and PIPA, I called my congressmen and voiced my concern today, the proposed law is useless to curb this behavior, but will instead hurt those who DO want to freely exchange ideas and information.
No it's just copying. Copying is not "theft" or "piracy" unless you prove that there is a loss. Arguing that investment return should be a guarantee is kind of creepy. Honestly, story telling has never been so expensive.
There's always a rogue fringe in the population. No matter how many laws you introduce, these law are only going to inconvenience the majority of the population. America has this great trend of over-criminalizing everything and for what ? The content industry represents what, 1% of the GDP ?
I'm not saying that if everybody would use TPB is wouldn't be bad for the content industry but last time I saw their numbers, they never have made as much profit. If it weren't for TPB&friends, we would probably not have Spotify or Netflix because the pressure wouldn't be there. The rogue people have always been useful in history to challenge status quo and we should cut them some slack. This is where the freedom kicks in.
Also, by repeating these terms of "piracy" and "theft", you are playing right in the hands of the hollywood PR. It's not aligned with reality and oversimplifies the complexity of what is going on. That's why I'm reacting. I'm sick of seeing the same biased ideas repeated by intelligent people that sound exactly as coming from hollywood.
Please, can't we just have more tolerance for each-other ?
As soon as you refer to copying as "theft" you lose me. Society can function just fine with unlimited PirateBay activity. It already does! Society cannot function with unlimited real-life thievery. QED
> Hollywood spends millions of dollars to create these movies. To pirate it and not compensate the companies involved is irresponsible, selfish and ignorant -- it is stealing
I think the point being made (albeit badly - through one poor analogy) is that society gains more through the distribution of 'creativity' than it does through ensuring that artists are fairly compensated.
I'm not entirely in either camp, however I would say to you that 'compensation' is never well applied. There are millions of artists who have changed the world and have made little to no money off their inventions. On the other hand there are many who have also made little contribution to the world, but profit hugely from incredibly meagre creations (often off the back of other, real inventions).
How many times am I allowed to watch a movie after I buy it?
Imagine now that I _buy_ the movie. Can I watch it with my friends? Or do they have to pay the movie too?
If they pay _me_ then I'm a pirate. If they don't, are they pirates?
If nobody payed for the movie than me and my friends who watch it are all pirates.
Except that I didn't buy it because someone in the "extended circle of my friends that I've never met" gave it to me. At least that's how I'm pretending it to be.
Now it's not entirely like this but this is the problem with the Internet Hollywood doesn't like. You can interact with people you've never met very easily and pretend that they're your friends.
I completely agree. It's time for all of the pirates to stop justifying their stealing by putting up the facade of protecting online freedoms in front of the obvious primary motive, not paying for content.
Steal if you want to, but stop trying to call it something else.
I don't take TPB's "press releases" too seriously, and I don't think they do either. It's interesting to hear how Hollywood came about but not significant or relevant to what TBP does. As far as arguments for piracy go, there was a much better submission here earlier today:
I'm actually shocked TPB hasn't participated in the blackout themselves. They made it clear they're international, but SOPA/PIPA are international too.
Edit: I wasn't very clear, what I really meant to say was that I'm shocked TPB hasn't acknowledged blackout day somehow, especially considering how often they change their image.
I suspect TPB did not black out because they will not shut themselves down in response to pressure from the US Gov't.
Even though they might make a living, I don't think they see TPB as a business. Instead, I think they see it as a mission, or a calling. I glean from the tone of their writing that they are convinced they are doing good in the world.
The pirate bay being blocked is the intended result of SOPA/PIPA. Reddit, Wikipedia, and Google getting blocked by SOPA/PIPA are the unintended consequences.
Possibly because they are one of the few sites that are effectively immune to SOPA. And TPB being blacked out would just play the SOPA people into their hands and prove their point.
The claim that Hollywood was created to evade Edison's patents is dubious.
According to "A history of narrative film" by David A. Cook "The reason why a full-scale Eastern-based industry moved its entire operation to southern California during these years has never been completely clear, but the general contours of the phenomenon are obvious enough". He then lists these reasons:
- the type of temperate climate required for year-round production (most shooting was done outdoors at the time)
- a wide range of topography within a 50 mile radius
- the status of Los Angeles as a professional theatrical center
Not sure I understand the point beyond the initial foundation of Hollywood. If this was say Linux vs. Windows they would have a point, but to say "...we crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow
people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man..." when they're talking about content created by these profitable companies it makes no sense and it seems like they're trying to make it into some sort of moral crusade for freedom. Strange.
The Pirate Bay is held up as the ultimate example of what SOPA aims to kill. However, isn't it hosted out of Swedish Parliament (http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-to-run-tpb-from-parliam...)? Aren't we in essence attacking a friendly government, and consequently afraid of pissing them off politically?
There's nothing about the US's past behavior which suggests that we're afraid of pissing off friendly countries. :) We're a bunch of international bullies, basically.
Actually, no, TPB is not hosted from the Swedish parliament. The Pirate Party did not manage to scramble the votes needed to get into parliament, and thus are unable to host any servers there.
Not very it would seem given that "pipa" does not mean "pipe" in the sense TPB are using it but rather only in the sense of a "pipe for smoking". A pipe in the sense TPB use it would be "rör". But relating the combination "trash" and "pipe for smoking" to their line of reasoning seems at least a little harder/more far fetched.
Could someone copy/paste the text of the blog entry here? I am in a country (Denmark) that already has DNS-blocking and I can't access The Pirate Bay (without changing my DNS settings... and I am too lazy to do that right now).
[+] [-] drewblaisdell|14 years ago|reply
The people who most frequently refer to internet piracy as theft/stealing are the ones who want to censor the internet and pay off congress. I hope that, regardless of where they stand on the piracy issue, HN users can be a little more articulate about why piracy is or is not permissible and stop referring to it inaccurately.
[+] [-] rickmb|14 years ago|reply
It's far more than just being semantically "inaccurate". Anyone who equates piracy with theft is being deliberately and fundamentally dishonest, and is only interested in waving their propaganda about instead of having an open debate.
[+] [-] wormwood28|14 years ago|reply
The English verb "to steal" is certainly capable of meaning "to take without the right" regardless of whether physical property is involved. Not to mention the myriad of common idioms, like "So-and-so stole my idea." What else are people trying to express by its use in this case?
It's clear that the issue here is their legal right to exclusive distribution and transmission (or "state granted monopoly", if you prefer) of their work, not whether or not they "still have a copy". It can be disagreed with, but they have it and others distributing their work without permission diminishes it.
Not saying I disagree with you that it's the wrong way to go about things, but, I think if one is being honest, the argument over the use of word is telling on both sides and that some people are clearly trying to demonize those who use the word, in the same way that they feel they are being demonized by its use against them.
[+] [-] twelvechairs|14 years ago|reply
Of course piracy is like theft in one way (you get something for free without compensating the author), however its not in another (unlike smashing a window and taking a diamond ring, nobody loses a diamond ring - or a window).
[+] [-] runn1ng|14 years ago|reply
If copyright theft was not theft, the whole GNU and Free Software movement wouldn't exist. As author of software licenced under GNU GPL, you say "this is free, but because I am the author and I have copyright, if you want to use it in your software, you must also release the code under GNU."
If you say copyright theft is not theft, any software company can go and use GNU code, include it in their proprietary code and re-sell it. And because you also imply that we should give up on copyright enforcement, they would get away with it.
[+] [-] axk|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 127|14 years ago|reply
You say it is not accurate but don't provide anything substantial to back up your claim. Instead you use a logical fallacy: because these persons are bad, thus the argument of using term "theft" is bad.
[+] [-] dino5050|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codabrink|14 years ago|reply
People work to create music just like people work to mine the earth to produce coal. Should one not get paid just because what they're producing can't be physically held?
[+] [-] samstave|14 years ago|reply
"...what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat."
---
I try to minimize the exposure of my kids to the plastic reality of disney - but it is nearly impossible. The system for indoctrinating girls into the consumption servitude archetype is insidiously powerful.
It is threaded in our society and very very hard to avoid.
[+] [-] benologist|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] earbitscom|14 years ago|reply
If you invest millions of dollars in movies or a music album, you have to charge money to make it back. As we can see from Spotify and others, ad supported models do not pay enough to cover the high costs of creating expensive products. But of course alternative revenue is enough to pay for the costs of selling something that doesn't belong to you and costs nothing for you to distribute. And once you have to charge, of course people will prefer to get it where they don't have to pay. It has little to do with convenience. The number one thing that will impact the conversion rate on a shopping cart funnel (besides SSN) is asking for a credit card, regardless of how few seconds it takes to fill it out. People are wary of putting their card in online, they're lazy, and they're cheap. You're not more efficient, you're just catering to the lowest common denominator of people.
There is virtually no reason why companies could not distribute products the way TPB does, except that they'd still have to charge money for those products. The minute you do that, someone who gives away hot dogs they didn't pay for wins. To pretend like it's some noble effort is a joke. You earn your livings off the backs of people who make things people want. Try charging your users for the things you offer and see how long your "more efficient" platform does well.
Sure, people will go on and on about how they get higher quality files, whole discographies in one click, and blah blah blah. Most people do not do that and they still pirate things. Taking things you didn't pay for and selling them cheaper than someone who did is not more efficient. Just start calling a spade a spade so we can move on and talk like adults.
[+] [-] samlev|14 years ago|reply
Digital content isn't exactly like a hot dog, so let's assume that you could design a magical hot dog which, once created, you can copy many times with no other costs. You have an unlimited supply of hot dogs, and each one of these hot dogs, being an exact copy of the original, can also be used to magically make more hot dogs.
Now I'm not saying that this hot dog is free - it cost a LOT in R&D to produce this hot dog, and you invested a lot in it. The other thing is that hot dogs go with buns, and there's sadly no magical buns in this universe. Each and every bun has to be created, and costs money.
So you set up your hot dog stand, selling magical hot dogs with non-magical buns. You charge a premium rate because you're the only guy in town who managed to make a magical hot dog of this quality, and with it's unique flavour. Besides, the buns are still costing you money, and they have to come from somewhere.
Now you notice some guy has found out that the magical hot dog you sold him can make new hot dogs at no cost, but they don't have the buns attached. As a response, you start baking the hot dogs into the bread - it makes it harder to get the hot dog out, and you think that that's the end of it. But the guy realises that with a bit of effort, he can get the hot dog out of the bread too, because what's the point of a hot dog if you can't get at it? Baking the hot dog into the bread is costing you even more, and making it harder for people to get to the hot dog.
Soon you have some people coming up to you and asking if they can have seeded bread, or maybe gluten free, or maybe they just hate bread and want it on it's own. Some of them want to buy just your hot dog and put it on their own bread. But if you start selling them hot dogs by themselves, won't they just start handing out free hot dogs to all their friends? That would be a disaster! So your answer is no! Hot dogs come baked into bread, and by now you've convinced the mayor to make it illegal to take your hot dogs out of the bread. People should just learn to love your bread!
So how's the guy who took your hot dog out of it's bread going? He's still giving away hot dogs for free, and what's worse is that he's telling everyone he gives one to to give them away, too. It's costing him nothing to do because he doesn't have to pay for bread. Sure, some people are still coming to you because they actually like the bread, but mostly the people coming to you are asking about bread-free options, and are still willing to pay. Most of the people going to the guy who's giving out hot dogs for free never bought anything from you, and some of them don't even eat the hot dogs. Sure, you see a few of your old customers going to him instead, but mostly the people going to him either never came to you, or (after tasting the free hot dog) later come to you to buy a genuine one in bread.
The point isn't that the guy giving away free hot dogs isn't a jerk. He is. The point is that you're stubbornly refusing to let people pay for a hot dog how they want it, in a way that costs you less (because you don't have to adjust the price for the bread - you just have to cover your costs, rather than incurring new ones).
You're doing this in an attempt to stop people doing what they're already doing. People don't want to rip you off - they just want to be able to pick their own bread.
To break from the analogy now, I was happily a pirate because it was difficult for me to get what I wanted how I wanted and there was no technical reason why it wasn't available. Sure, if I wanted all my movies as flip-books, then there's a technical reason why that doesn't make sense, but there's no technical reason stopping me from getting them as digital media files.
If I'm looking for music from a band, I will always try to find a legal channel to obtain it first. If I can't find one (and these days, it's getting pretty rare), then I'll probably pirate it. Sure, some people will pirate it anyway because they feel entitled to it, but the point is that many, many people have no problems paying for content so long as they can get it how and when they want it. This type of availability of content is pretty much what TPB seems to be about for many people. It's not about screwing content producers - it's about freedom of choice.
Anyway, that's my take on it. I know that there are people who will always choose to steal rather than pay, but most of society would happily pay if only we were allowed to.
[+] [-] pyre|14 years ago|reply
There are tons of examples where the MPAA/RIAA members could have switched distribution methods, but chose not to for a very long time because they are too conservative. Once they shuttered Napster, they could have paid a team to develop something similar to the iTunes music store, and organized a set of standards to govern music players with electronics companies. They could have owned the new distribution medium by ushering it in themselves. Instead they spent time on legal teams playing wack-a-mole with the pirates and lobbying various legislative bodies across the globe to try and prevent the Internet from happening. The only investment that they want to make in the future is attempting to extend the ecosystem of the past into the future as far as possible.
[+] [-] seanp2k2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewcamel|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephen_g|14 years ago|reply
I'm not arguing for the Pirate Bay, but there is an error in your logic - to make that analogy fit into an online distribution situation, you would have to postulate that you only have to pay for one hotdog, and the rest can be duplicated and distributed for close to zero cost.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dazbradbury|14 years ago|reply
"Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture."
[+] [-] dangrover|14 years ago|reply
I don't understand -- aren't patents federally enforced?
[+] [-] inexplicable|14 years ago|reply
To me this was the best part of the entire message.
[+] [-] artursapek|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ComputerGuru|14 years ago|reply
INTERNETS, 18th of January 2012. PRESS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.
Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture.
Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent. There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever.
So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: "stole") other peoples creative works, without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they're all successful and most of the studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations - it's all based on being able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create. If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing other peoples rules.
The reason they are always complainting about "pirates" today is simple. We've done what they did. We circumvented the rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them). It's all based on the fact that we're competition. We've proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We're just better than they are.
And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech. We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.
The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe - but we've stayed out of the USA. We have Swedish roots and a swedish friend said this: The word SOPA means "trash" in Swedish. The word PIPA means "a pipe" in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence. They want to make the internet inte a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the rest of us obedient consumers. The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you'll learn that noone wants to be fed with trash. Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that you will stop them, before we all drown.
SOPA can't do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we'll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really. To fix the "problem of piracy" one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they're creating "culture" but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat.
In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he's complainting that Google is the biggest source of piracy in the world - because he's jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you'd get a more honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News.
Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We're sorry for that.
THE PIRATE BAY, (K)2012
[+] [-] davyjones|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewcamel|14 years ago|reply
Call it what you want, but what a ton of people are doing in downloading movies off the pirate bay is taking something that they haven't paid for. Maybe one can say that isn't stealing, but I find it hard to call it anything else.
Maybe I'm missing something in their stance?
EDIT: I know we're talking about the middleman and not the producing companies, but the pirate bay is still facilitating the act of taking revenues away from producers, right?
[+] [-] wmblaettler|14 years ago|reply
This argument is not about freedom of exchanging original ideas or even sharing bits of "copyrighted" information, it's about the wholesale stealing of movies which took a great deal of time money and effort to create, even if they are considered 'trash'. In the end, TPB and it's users only pander to the "culture" that they supposedly so despise by consuming such media, they just don't like paying for it.
The "great game" referenced (Civilization, at least the most recent version: 5), is ironically available to download on The Pirate Bay. I suppose this is not worth paying Sid Meier and the development studios he worked with to create this game either.
Pretty much the only thing I don't disagree with are the buried statements about Fox News and the media's control over the public opinion and the inhumane conditions in foreign factories.
FWIW, I OPPOSE SOPA and PIPA, I called my congressmen and voiced my concern today, the proposed law is useless to curb this behavior, but will instead hurt those who DO want to freely exchange ideas and information.
[+] [-] zimbatm|14 years ago|reply
There's always a rogue fringe in the population. No matter how many laws you introduce, these law are only going to inconvenience the majority of the population. America has this great trend of over-criminalizing everything and for what ? The content industry represents what, 1% of the GDP ?
I'm not saying that if everybody would use TPB is wouldn't be bad for the content industry but last time I saw their numbers, they never have made as much profit. If it weren't for TPB&friends, we would probably not have Spotify or Netflix because the pressure wouldn't be there. The rogue people have always been useful in history to challenge status quo and we should cut them some slack. This is where the freedom kicks in.
Also, by repeating these terms of "piracy" and "theft", you are playing right in the hands of the hollywood PR. It's not aligned with reality and oversimplifies the complexity of what is going on. That's why I'm reacting. I'm sick of seeing the same biased ideas repeated by intelligent people that sound exactly as coming from hollywood.
Please, can't we just have more tolerance for each-other ?
[+] [-] jquery|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twelvechairs|14 years ago|reply
I think the point being made (albeit badly - through one poor analogy) is that society gains more through the distribution of 'creativity' than it does through ensuring that artists are fairly compensated.
I'm not entirely in either camp, however I would say to you that 'compensation' is never well applied. There are millions of artists who have changed the world and have made little to no money off their inventions. On the other hand there are many who have also made little contribution to the world, but profit hugely from incredibly meagre creations (often off the back of other, real inventions).
[+] [-] tjogin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crististm|14 years ago|reply
Imagine now that I _buy_ the movie. Can I watch it with my friends? Or do they have to pay the movie too? If they pay _me_ then I'm a pirate. If they don't, are they pirates?
If nobody payed for the movie than me and my friends who watch it are all pirates. Except that I didn't buy it because someone in the "extended circle of my friends that I've never met" gave it to me. At least that's how I'm pretending it to be.
Now it's not entirely like this but this is the problem with the Internet Hollywood doesn't like. You can interact with people you've never met very easily and pretend that they're your friends.
[+] [-] andrewcamel|14 years ago|reply
Steal if you want to, but stop trying to call it something else.
[+] [-] jgn|14 years ago|reply
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3478850
I'm actually shocked TPB hasn't participated in the blackout themselves. They made it clear they're international, but SOPA/PIPA are international too.
Edit: I wasn't very clear, what I really meant to say was that I'm shocked TPB hasn't acknowledged blackout day somehow, especially considering how often they change their image.
[+] [-] MiguelHudnandez|14 years ago|reply
Even though they might make a living, I don't think they see TPB as a business. Instead, I think they see it as a mission, or a calling. I glean from the tone of their writing that they are convinced they are doing good in the world.
[+] [-] wvenable|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jensnockert|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zupatol|14 years ago|reply
According to "A history of narrative film" by David A. Cook "The reason why a full-scale Eastern-based industry moved its entire operation to southern California during these years has never been completely clear, but the general contours of the phenomenon are obvious enough". He then lists these reasons:
- the type of temperate climate required for year-round production (most shooting was done outdoors at the time)
- a wide range of topography within a 50 mile radius
- the status of Los Angeles as a professional theatrical center
- a low tax base
- cheap and plentiful labor and land
[+] [-] citricsquid|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lukejduncan|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barrybe|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nixy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trouble|14 years ago|reply
An interesting statement overall, but sentences like the one above have to make you wonder how seriously TPB is thinking about the issue.
[+] [-] msandin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bering|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ComputerGuru|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] masonlee|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] tedsbardella|14 years ago|reply
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