Quote:
Originally Posted by EatingPie
Why is it okay for American Indians to call themselves "Indians" but for me not to? One of my good friends is an Indian. My family and friends refer to him as "The Indian." Not because we're judging him. Not because we think less of him. He just happens to be an Indian, and that sets him apart, makes him unique.
To say that's somehow inherently wrong -- when no malice or judgement is involved -- bothers me.
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It's not inherently wrong. No word is. However I know quite a few people who would find it disrespectful or offensive to be called that. I know a few who don't. Given the choice, I avoid grenade words (even though it's nowhere near as bad as the n-word).
Quote:
Originally Posted by EatingPie
You can't stop all thieves, pedophiles and murderers either, so why try? That's the exact same logic, just applied to more... socially unacceptable crimes.
With Internet Piracy, there may be other solutions than we have in place. But to say "why even try" is somewhat demeaning to the artists themselves. "You can create this great work, some people will compensate you fairly, but once it hits the Internet... tough luck buster!"
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Wow. Talk about a slippery slope. Here's the thing - it is physically impossible to stop piracy. I'm not saying "you can't stop all pirates," I'm saying that it is impossible to keep people from aquiring digital goods if they want to. DRM cannot work. Literally, cannot. The analogy is a jail cell - if you can see the lock, and someone needs to give you the key (because you need to open it), you can make a copy of the key and unlock the cell at will. Not to mention all of the analog ways of copying - I can sit at my computer and type out a book, and once it's on the net it's on the net.
So that's why there's no point to fighting piracy. You cannot possibly win. It's not so much that you can't catch them all - it's that you can't catch more than 1% of 1%. For all the press the RIAA has gotten, what proportion of people have been sued vs people who have downloaded music? Not to mention that once I have something without DRM I can spread it physically by CD/SD card and nobody is going to be able to track me down. Hell, unless I'm profiting from it, nobody is going to
want to track me down.
Now to your slippery slope. A thief steals - a physical good. You can't argue that it's the same to steal a CD as it is to steal a bunch of MP3s because when you steal the CD, a piece of the supply is lost. That CD has been paid for (overhead-wise) by manufacturing, and that is money lost. With the MP3s, no supply is lost. No overhead is spent. No manufacturing costs incurred. The only way that you can argue that taking the MP3s is theft of any sort is by guessing at how many of the people who got the MP3s would have paid for the CD if the pirated version wasn't an option. And that's all it will ever be. A guess. You can say 100% or 0% and each are equally valid. There is no direct harm whatsoever. Indirect? Maybe, maybe not - some people who wouldn't have bought that band's music will in the future now that they've been able to listen to it. Some that would have bought it now won't. Will it even out? Nobody knows (or can know).
That's theft. I'm not going to entertain your pedophile or murder charges because we both know that comparing something that causes no direct harm to something that causes direct harm to at least one and indirect harm to hundreds of others is absurd.
I'm a freelance writer and graphic designer. I do some animation work as well. I obviously would like to make money off of my work, but at the same time I know that my stuff will eventually get onto the internet without any manner of copy protection no matter what I do. I also know that some people will avoid my work if I do put strong DRM on it, while removing my DRM isn't going necessarily guarantee less sales. It's a race between me and the pirates (if I don't just use creative commons, which I will). While I can try to delay the pirates getting my material, I will lose customers while treating my customers as criminals (let's face it, DRM is treating your customers as criminals). And make no mistake, the pirates will inevitably win anyway.
As I see it, we live in a new world - a new economy - where your work needs to compete with a free version of itself. Whether that's by value-added stuff (poster print in a physical book), just by pricing your work inexpensively enough that it's not worth the trouble to get it for free (see: DRM-free iTunes), or creating secondary revenue streams based on your work (merchandise, advertising, etc), you need to give the customer a reasonable, legal option. They need to feel your price is fair. Sure, some people will still pirate stuff. Let it go. Move on. Build a relationship with your own customers and forget about the hypothetical theoretical money you might possibly have been making if only those nasty pirates weren't a thorn in your side. You've lost before you begin.
Maybe things used to be different. You can never go home again. Live with it.