Court Rules That File-Sharing Service Infringed Copyrights

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

He is using the word greed as an insult. I find it alienating.

Go back to the original post I was responding to and read that authors and corporations were called greedy for wanting to charge something. So, did he insult corporations? And I replied (and I stand by that statement) that it is just as greedy to want the item in question for free or just to want to "name your price". As with any product, the owners have the right to set any price and the consumer has the right not to buy it.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Iphinome

perversity pay closer attention. The argument went well beyond piracy and into anyone who didn't like publisher pricing or tactics being greedy for wanting a better deal. Are you trying to say objecting to something being overpriced is the same as piracy?

Now you are reading things into my statement that are just not there. We all want to get a better deal. The right way is to refuse to buy -- or wait for discounts, coupons, whatever. Not downloading from the darknet.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Closed stores are keeping me away from other people's property. DRM keeps me away from *my* property.

Not really. DRM is designed to keep you from duplicating your property and giving it to someone else. And remember, though you bought it, you only bought the right to own a licensed copy of the document... not really "property." The fact that it prevents you from format shifting is (and even I hate to say it this way) an unfortunate side-effect, and not the same as keeping you from your property/product/whatever.

Originally Posted by Iphinome

Well aren't you just insulting. Because copyright terms should be a fixed length and only last as long as it takes to encourage more creation, anything beyond that defeats the purpose of to promote science and the useful arts.

Well, I've been called worse... but I agree (and I apologize, because I thought you were making a different point), overextending copyright length is wrong, and the practice should be reigned in.

At the same time, it does not give justification for illegally downloading and disseminating files because you don't like the copyright law. The best form of protest, in this case, would be to leave the content alone compltely... show them that their content is not worth it to you or anyone else. Stealing it sends the wrong message (it doesn't condemn them... it condemns the thief).

[Iphinome]

Steve Jordan I accept your apology misunderstandings happen.

As I posted earlier that's a point where most people and I may not agree, I have in the past broken laws for the sake of breaking an unjust law.

Also use the word infringement instead of stealing I refuse to accept you or anyone else trying to re-frame the argument like that. It is unfair and I can find inflammatory words to describe the people I have a problem with if necessary.

[HansTWN]

Not much to add to Steve's post. Obvious problems with pricing, regional restrictions, DRM, and the length of copyright are no excuse for illegal copying. We can protest against those in a forum like MR, we can send e-mails to the parties responsible, we can refuse to buy.

[afa]

Originally Posted by Iphinome

As I posted earlier that's a point where most people and I may not agree, I have in the past broken laws for the sake of breaking an unjust law.

Well, I don't want to jump into a firestorm here, but I worry about such beliefs. If the masses find a particular law objectionable, or a violation of their rights and civil liberties, then there are options. Start a petition, get enough support, maybe hire a lawyer to launch a class action lawsuit, etc. Protest the laws and policies, try and convince the ones who made the policy (whether at a government level, or in this case, publishers) to change their ways.

But I don't think anyone, as an individual, has the right to pick and choose which laws they will or will not follow. Down that road leads chaos and anarchy.

Who determines what is or is not 'worthy' of being followed? Individuals? Where will that stop, then? You decide preventing distribution of ebooks is 'unjust' (whatever your definition of unjust might be), so you're going to break it. Then your neighbour decides preventing him from getting music off Pirate Bay is unjust, so he does that. Then someone decides that stopping him from speeding is unjust, so he drives down the road near a school at 200mph. Pretty soon, I'll decide that preventing me from killing that bloke that annoys me is unjust, so I should be allowed to commit murder. That's fair, is it?? That's logical?

If you don't like the laws in Country X, then go live in Country Y. If you don't like the prices of music CDs or ebooks, then don't buy them. Learn to live without them. You have options, you have rights; but the one 'right' you do not have, is to conveniently break laws as you see fit.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by afa

Well, I don't want to jump into a firestorm here, but I worry about such beliefs. If the masses find a particular law objectionable, or a violation of their rights and civil liberties, then there are options. Start a petition, get enough support, maybe hire a lawyer to launch a class action lawsuit, etc. Protest the laws and policies, try and convince the ones who made the policy (whether at a government level, or in this case, publishers) to change their ways.

But I don't think anyone, as an individual, has the right to pick and choose which laws they will or will not follow. Down that road leads chaos and anarchy.

Who determines what is or is not 'worthy' of being followed? Individuals? Where will that stop, then? You decide preventing distribution of ebooks is 'unjust' (whatever your definition of unjust might be), so you're going to break it. Then your neighbour decides preventing him from getting music off Pirate Bay is unjust, so he does that. Then someone decides that stopping him from speeding is unjust, so he drives down the road near a school at 200mph. Pretty soon, I'll decide that preventing me from killing that bloke that annoys me is unjust, so I should be allowed to commit murder. That's fair, is it?? That's logical?

If you don't like the laws in Country X, then go live in Country Y. If you don't like the prices of music CDs or ebooks, then don't buy them. Learn to live without them. You have options, you have rights; but the one 'right' you do not have, is to conveniently break laws as you see fit.

Except the for the speed limit, of course!

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by afa

If you don't like the laws in Country X, then go live in Country Y.

How can you even consider that reasonable? People can't just move to a different country as if they're moving across the street.

I absolutely choose which laws I will follow and so do you. Have you never jaywalked? Exceeded the speed limit? But that's not what I'm talking about, illegal does not mean immoral and breaking laws as a form of protest has a long history. If people are pissed off about copyright laws and drm and unskippable ads and decide to download then good, someone somewhere deserving may get screwed out of a little money, it happens.

From hippies chaining themselves to trees to protect spotted owls to Rosa Parks not moving to the back of the bus. Ghandi, Martin Luther King, anyone who's ever been arrested for sodomy or adultery, Tibetan monks who set themselves on fire. Whatever it is big or small people break the law for what they believe. Yes some of them are nutjobs by my standards but even then they see what they think is injustice and stand up and say no.

If you want to obey every law then I hope you never come across one that is not just inconvenient, not just a little unfair but plain offensive. Slavery is gone now at least in law, racial segregation took a lot of law breaking, sodomy laws were only overturned in 2003 in the US. In Saudi Arabia women can't drive would you tell them to just move to country Y?

What I'm trying to say is laws like the DMCA may not rise to that level with you, you might even approve of them but other people might feel different and if it matters that much to them then yes, break the law, strip drm, download if you don't know how, stick it to the man, if life+70 copyrights offend you download stuff that goes PD in life+50 countries or whatever.

[EowynCarter]

Speaking of drm, i had a little "scare" moment when buying e-books from sony store yesterday. After buying book, i realized the sony reader might not use the same key, and I would be unable to de-drm. Worse I might be unable to get the sony software to authenticate my non-sony reader, meaning i would be unable to read the paid for book at all.
I've never been so happy to see inept's "file successfully decrypted". And went on to the usual margin / css fixing. (that's one reason I de-drm my books, in addition to making my life easier. Fixing the publisher's mess.)

If you don't like the laws in Country X, then go live in Country Y. If you don't like the prices of music CDs or ebooks, then don't buy them. Learn to live without them. You have options, you have rights; but the one 'right' you do not have, is to conveniently break laws as you see fit.

Up to a certain point. I will not take the right to download content I should pay for. But, while the US law makes it illegal to read DVD on linux, or get my books rid of drm, that would be a right I would take, where I living there.
Though I will not take the right to distribute the books after striping off the DRM.

[afa]

Originally Posted by Iphinome

I absolutely choose which laws I will follow and so do you. Have you never jaywalked? Exceeded the speed limit?

As a matter of fact, I do, as much as possible, drive within the limit. And I would certainly advise everyone else to do the same. And jaywalking is not the same thing because that doesn't infringe on anyone else's rights (unlike illegally acquiring an author's book(s)).

But that's not what I'm talking about, illegal does not mean immoral and breaking laws as a form of protest has a long history. [...]
Rosa Parks not moving to the back of the bus. Ghandi, Martin Luther King, [...]Slavery is gone now at least in law, racial segregation took a lot of law breaking, sodomy laws were only overturned in 2003 in the US. In Saudi Arabia women can't drive would you tell them to just move to country Y? .

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that perhaps your 'protest' isn't quite up there with the likes of Parks, Ghandi or MLK. Fifty years from now, people aren't exactly going to be reading in the history books about Iphinome's fight against the evil of DRMed ebooks. I dare say stripping DRM, or arguing that books/music/movies/whatever else are overpriced, isn't quite as significant to humanity as fighting racism, fascism, oppression or tyranny. But, hey, maybe that's just me.

And who decides what these so called 'just' causes are? You? Me? The guy next door? Everyone has their own rules which irk them. If we were all to go out and start breaking rules of our selfish choosing then that would, as I said before, just lead to chaos. Fighting oppression is one thing. Anarchy is another, entirely.

What I'm trying to say is laws like the DMCA may not rise to that level with you,

Not even in the same stratosphere, no.

you might even approve of them

As a matter of fact, I do not. I absolutely agree that DRM does nothing beyond irritating legitimate (i.e. paying) customers. But your arguments aren't merely about stripping DRM and/or allowing consumers to read their books how and where they want; your argument is advocating the consumption of pirated books, thereby denying the authors of those works from realising their right to earn a living from their creations.

I absolutely agree that DRM (at least in its current form) should be eradicated. I would, however, support publishers if they were ever able to come up with a method to respect the consumers' rights while reducing piracy. (And no, I have no idea how. I'll leave that to people smarter than myself.) But I absolutely disagree with the methods that you seem to support.

but other people might feel different and if it matters that much to them then yes, break the law, strip drm, download if you don't know how, stick it to the man, if life+70 copyrights offend you download stuff that goes PD in life+50 countries or whatever.

First of all, this notion that you're 'sticking it to the man'. My response to these 'other people' is: Seriously, stop kidding yourself. You're not some modern day Robin Hood. Don't try to convince me you're just doing this for some greater good. You're doing it for yourselves. Your motivation is self gain, and you're going to have an awfully hard time convincing me otherwise. Besides, what you consider sticking it to the man, in fact does more damage to the artists/authors who created the work. The fact that a particular author loses potential sales hurts him, not the industry. They'll just move on to the next one, and the next one, and...

Secondly, I really don't understand your objection to the copyright thing. (I thought it was life+25?). If you were an entrepeneur who started a private business, wouldn't you feel that your kids should be able to enjoy the fruits of your labour after you were dead? Or do you think it's okay for someone to come along the day after and say, "Sorry, this is now public property." Personally, I don't have a strong opinion on the Life+X issue either way. I'm just trying to understand why you find it so offensive..?

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Up to a certain point. I will not take the right to download content I should pay for. But, while the US law makes it illegal to read DVD on linux, or get my books rid of drm, that would be a right I would take, where I living there.
Though I will not take the right to distribute the books after striping off the DRM.

And I agree with that. You want to strip DRM for personal use, because you have multiple devices or whatever? Go ahead. You want to be able to lend it to a family member or a couple of your friends? That's fine by me.

But uploading it on the darknet so millions of people can get it for free, and deny the author his right to earn a living? Sorry, but that's not something I will ever, ever agree with.

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by afa

As a matter of fact, I do, as much as possible, drive within the limit. And I would certainly advise everyone else to do the same. And jaywalking is not the same thing because that doesn't infringe on anyone else's rights (unlike illegally acquiring an author's book(s)).


I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that perhaps your 'protest' isn't quite up there with the likes of Parks, Ghandi or MLK. Fifty years from now, people aren't exactly going to be reading in the history books about Iphinome's fight against the evil of DRMed ebooks. I dare say stripping DRM, or arguing that books/music/movies/whatever else are overpriced, isn't quite as significant to humanity as fighting racism, fascism, oppression or tyranny. But, hey, maybe that's just me.

And who decides what these so called 'just' causes are? You? Me? The guy next door? Everyone has their own rules which irk them. If we were all to go out and start breaking rules of our selfish choosing then that would, as I said before, just lead to chaos. Fighting oppression is one thing. Anarchy is another, entirely.

Not even in the same stratosphere, no.


As a matter of fact, I do not. I absolutely agree that DRM does nothing beyond irritating legitimate (i.e. paying) customers. But your arguments aren't merely about stripping DRM and/or allowing consumers to read their books how and where they want; your argument is advocating the consumption of pirated books, thereby denying the authors of those works from realising their right to earn a living from their creations.

I absolutely agree that DRM (at least in its current form) should be eradicated. I would, however, support publishers if they were ever able to come up with a method to respect the consumers' rights while reducing piracy. (And no, I have no idea how. I'll leave that to people smarter than myself.) But I absolutely disagree with the methods that you seem to support.


First of all, this notion that you're 'sticking it to the man'. My response to these 'other people' is: Seriously, stop kidding yourself. You're not some modern day Robin Hood. Don't try to convince me you're just doing this for some greater good. You're doing it for yourselves. Your motivation is self gain, and you're going to have an awfully hard time convincing me otherwise. Besides, what you consider sticking it to the man, in fact does more damage to the artists/authors who created the work. The fact that a particular author loses potential sales hurts him, not the industry. They'll just move on to the next one, and the next one, and...

Secondly, I really don't understand your objection to the copyright thing. (I thought it was life+25?). If you were an entrepeneur who started a private business, wouldn't you feel that your kids should be able to enjoy the fruits of your labour after you were dead? Or do you think it's okay for someone to come along the day after and say, "Sorry, this is now public property." Personally, I don't have a strong opinion on the Life+X issue either way. I'm just trying to understand why you find it so offensive..?


And I agree with that. You want to strip DRM for personal use, because you have multiple devices or whatever? Go ahead. You want to be able to lend it to a family member or a couple of your friends? That's fine by me.

But uploading it on the darknet so millions of people can get it for free, and deny the author his right to earn a living? Sorry, but that's not something I will ever, ever agree with.

Yes it is just you, you don't get to say what matters to me or how much. Stripping DRM is against the law where I live, that law is unjust, that law takes away the people's liberty and gives nothing at all in return and what you think of that has nothing to do with what I think of it and what I feel I need to do. Who decides? I do. I decide for myself what's just and what is not and I decide if and how I choose to deal with the injustice in the world. Don't you dare trivialize my feelings on the matter and since you're so gods damned sure you know what I've personally been doing, I had set out to break laws against consensual sodomy alas I only managed to do it in a few of the many states that had them on the books before Lawrence vs Texas.

Second You are not qualified to speak to my motivation, you don't know it you don't know me all you know is I made one statement in a long thread that pissed you off, that I'll happily break bad laws for the sake of breaking bad laws. Be it stripping DRM or freeing slaves what's it to you, I'm the one taking the risk to fight the good fight. What are you doing other than picking on me? And what methods against DRM have you decided I support because I don't recall ever getting very specific about it so why don't I. There's no excuse for anything that prevents me from making backups if and when or as often as I see fit the media I put something on can degrade just as the original can. There's no excuse for preventing me from format shifting or editing or playing it backwards or baking it into a pie when I pay for it its mine.

Copyright, in the US its life+70, there is no need to register or pay any fees copyright is automatic. DMCA protection is automatic, the ability to take infringement cases to court is automatic (registration is required to ask for damages). Copyright laws outside the united States are a bit out of my area in theory there's no reason why they should affect me except at times I'm outside the country so I'll leave that out for now. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Lifetime+ copyrights fail both tests, They do not promote progress they retard it by keeping things form entering the public domain. You see the point of US copyright was not to make sure people make money off of their creations, it was the offer of a chance to do that in exchange for the creations. You may not see the difference, think of copyrights like patents when a patent runs out everyone gains the chance to build the patented thing like say aspirin, you pick up a bottle of the stuff for a dollar and that's the beauty of the system cheap abundant aspirin has no doubt saved lives. The goal is to get movies music books paintings everything out there where people can use it for whatever they want. A copyright isn't your father's watch or your grandmother's wedding ring. its a contract with society and the longer that contract is for the less chances there are for others to make progress. The second issue is life+ anything hardly qualifies as a limited time to a rational person. If someone born today can't expect to make public domain use of something copyrighted today because they'll be dead by the time they'd have the chance then the copyright is effectively unlimited. The person born today would have no reason at all to ever respect copyright because they will never reap the rewards that come at the end of the copyright term.

On the next point authors do not have a right to earn a living from books they have the right to try. If no one buys their books too bad, if the whole buisness model used by publishers fails too bad, we all run the same risks of losing our jobs having the whole industry we work in disappear. People say its okay to just not buy a product if we don't like the industry or don't like the price tell me not in the moral sense not in the legal sense but in the monetary sense, what's the difference between refusing to buy and pirating? They were never going to get paid? Actually forget that let's talk instead about people who would pay. DRM, or no ebook being sold, people who would pay for what they want but its not being offered or being offered at an excessive price who are you to pick on them, they're getting screwed.

Long post, let me sum up, you try not to speed but you do it so don't pretend you're somehow superior, I argue against unneeded unreasonable restrictions on liberty and laws that violate the Constitution of my home you argue for the interests of the people who caused the problem. You attack me before having any idea what it is I really do.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

An ebook can potentially be reproduced and shared with thousands of your closest friends, with no money going to the author beyond the first file. Authors stand to lose orders of magnitude more on e-book sharing compared to used book buying.

I just had a quick look on one of the better known book "sharing" sites at some download stats for newish books I would guess would be the most popular. If you can suggest anything else I can look up figures for those as well.

Dr Who Revelation of the Daleks 14
2 x Brian Keene out of print/unavailable as ebook 116
Scott Sigler Infected 10
Chronicles of Narnia 265

The only one approaching 4 figures was a complete Stephen King collection.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Go back to the original post I was responding to and read that authors and corporations were called greedy for wanting to charge something. So, did he insult corporations? And I replied (and I stand by that statement) that it is just as greedy to want the item in question for free or just to want to "name your price". As with any product, the owners have the right to set any price and the consumer has the right not to buy it.

Or look for a cheaper alternative source for it, whether that be a second hand paperback, a dodgy CDR from Ebay, or a free download. I would suspect that the dfference between what people are prepared to pay and what publishers want isn't a vast amount ...

[dmikov]

Originally Posted by afa

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that perhaps your 'protest' isn't quite up there with the likes of Parks, Ghandi or MLK. Fifty years from now, people aren't exactly going to be reading in the history books about Iphinome's fight against the evil of DRMed ebooks. I dare say stripping DRM, or arguing that books/music/movies/whatever else are overpriced, isn't quite as significant to humanity as fighting racism, fascism, oppression or tyranny. But, hey, maybe that's just me.

I wouldn't bet on it Afa, the fight for the rights to consume information might be as important in the coming years. Mr. Jordan already saying that we are not buying books, but "license". I say no way. I bought the book it's mine. I buy the car I can sell it next day or 10 years after, my wife can drive it and so is my son. I want these rights back on all the stuff I own and the people who get that back will be remembered.
I don't want Toyota telling me that the engine block design in my car was just licensed to me only and I am taking money from hungry Toyota CEO children mouth by trading my car with this design in it. I don't want McMillan doing same either.

Nobody is advocating piracy as an only way to distribute creative work, not that I read it in this thread anyway. So please stop building a straw man.
But many pointing out the roots and extenuating circumstances as to why we sometimes forced to it.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by afa

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that perhaps your 'protest' isn't quite up there with the likes of Parks, Ghandi or MLK. Fifty years from now, people aren't exactly going to be reading in the history books about Iphinome's fight against the evil of DRMed ebooks. I dare say stripping DRM, or arguing that books/music/movies/whatever else are overpriced, isn't quite as significant to humanity as fighting racism, fascism, oppression or tyranny. But, hey, maybe that's just me.

given that practically all of human civilisation and advancement in every area (arts, science, philosophy...) has been a matter of building on what has come before, and that (ironically...) it was precisely to foster the cultural enrichment of humanity *as a whole* that copyright was in fact first created, actually i'd say the preservation and continued expansion of the public domain is of a primordial importance to all of us. our shared culture is perhaps the main thing which sets us apart from other animals.

as a corollary, the expression "those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it" comes to mind ; the public domain acts (in part, not exclusively) as a repository for history so that we don't forget it. and that suddenly gives it new importance for other fights against things like fascism, oppression, racism, tyranny...