The culture of entitlement and illegal downloads

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Yes, everybody assumes that China's software and web controls are the only way to make things more secure... and that they will result in a totalitarian regime if implemented. News flash, guys: China was a totalitarian regime well before the Internet was invented. The two are not mutually connected.

Steve, there is no way to verify a packet of data is infringing. None. The best that could be hoped for is that you could match it against a known version and say there is a match. And that falls to pieces if the result is encrypted. And there is no way to stop people from encrypting.

I have in my hand right now two SD chips, one, a 32GB micro SD chip, and a full size 128GB SD chip. I could mail either one to anybody, full of data. 32GB is 40+ hours of FLAC music, 30,000+ e-books (@ 1 megabyte per e-book) or maybe 4 DVD's.

Am I doing that? Absolutely not! But it can't be stopped, short of living in a totalitarian state.
...

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

By the way: All of this discussion about the value of laws, etc... is Let's try to get back to the subject of entitlement.

Back to entitlements. Whose entitlement? You seem to be just as arrogantly entitled to making everybody follow your rules as the archtypical "data wants to be free" pirate. To me, I don't see the entitlement difference. Different details, same entitlement attitude....

[CyGuy]

Never mind.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

But that's exactly what you're trying to describe, as a result of creating and enforcing better document security. I say you're over-reacting, as most people do, to the idea of better security and enforcement, whatever the goal... while ignoring all of the examples of laws and enforcement around you that have not brought the world to a crashing halt.

I thought the claim was "we need more laws, which will more severely restrict people's ability to share information with each other?" If the current ones are sufficient, then no, obviously, the internet will not crash from them.

Also, I said internet, not "world." The world exists just fine outside of the internet. And vastly more severe laws wouldn't kill the internet, just the WWW. The data exchange would jump back to private FTP, torrents, newsgroups, and email--and if that didn't work, private phone-in networks would reappear. DNS isn't the only way for computers to talk to each other; it's just a convenience for large-scale activity. We had an active internet, complete with pirated data of several varieties, long before we had IP addresses and URLs.

You have completely dodged the question of "how would I, individual user, benefit from this enhanced document security?" Would my data be more secure; would I have better tools with which to control who uses it and how it's used? Or do your enhanced laws only benefit corporations and their subjects?

To your credit, it seems to be a natural reaction to the subject of law and control (I'm sure it's biologically based, though I suspect a social component is also at work). That's primarily why laws and enforcement have to be documented, in order to provide the trackable evidence, checks and balances that prevent it's getting out of control.

We have laws, checks and balances. Some people are claiming they're not sufficient to deal with the problems--without being willing to identify the harm they want to correct.

By the way: All of this discussion about the value of laws, etc... is Let's try to get back to the subject of entitlement.

Certainly. The author of the blog post that inspired this thread was ranting about the "entitlement" of readers who believe they have some kind of right to be entertained without paying the producer of the entertainment.

However, it's a rather entitled view of the author--and media companies--to believe they have a right to payment from every person who experiences their products. That's never been the way entertainment worked.

Certainly, payment has never been mandatory to the creator of the entertainment. I own thousands of second-hand books. Most of them I paid for (some were gifts); none of them gave royalties to the author. Why should I suddenly be paying the author for everything I read?

We aren't yet at a tech-point where it's as easy to scan books as it is to rip CDs... but we're close. When we get there, will authors insist that they deserve payment for people scanning their own secondhand books?

I find the "1 purchase = 1 reader" concept just as loaded with entitlement as "If it's available somewhere, I shouldn't have to pay for it." I believe that finding a middle ground between these two stances is perhaps the key issue in copyright reform; any new laws or social norms are going to need to strike a balance between those two extremes.

Right now, most people are sorting out that balance on their own--some decide it's okay to download if they own a physical copy already; some only share data with close friends & family members; some exhort people they share with to also buy content by the same creators; some only share content tied to physical devices (like libraries loaning out kindles with books on them).

Some people, of course, are jerks about it. OTOH, some authors are jerks as well; the entitlement game runs both directions.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by sbroome

"When something isn't available as an e-book, people will copy it, so the wise thing to do would be to make the book available as an e-book. "

People pirate even if things are available and they just don't want to pay for them. This "Oliver Twist just wants a bowl of ebooks" nonsense needs to be put to rest.

Unavailability isn't the only reason for unauthorised downloading, but it is the most common reason among people who actually buy digital content. And those are the sort of people that should really be encouraged rather than wasting time, money and effort on people who will never buy no matter what you do.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

There's nothing to prevent tighter security over the web. Yes, it can happen in the U.S. It will only take the decision of the government, and hardware/software makers, to make it so. And if things continue to tend toward the anarchy that exists today, I expect that eventually, the government and corporations will say, "enough is enough," and enact tighter controls and enforcement.

What will prevent it happening? People behaving themselves.

You tell me which is more likely.

I don't doubt for one minute that will happen, and they will almost certainly use "piracy" as the excuse to sell it to the masses, just like "terrorism" was used as an excuse to install cameras on every street corner. But if stopping piracy was the only intent they could already do that using the existing laws. In fact you yourself (and me if I wanted to) could easily have content removed from the internet without any new laws or powers. Be very careful what you wish for.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Funny, I seem to remember a very lively world before we could go online to see skateboarding dogs. I also seem to remember a world where the news presented to us was verified and believable... unlike all those blogs out there...

I remember those days too. They were also the days when corporations who controlled what books could be published would turn their nose up at people like us with our tiny potential audience because we wouldn't be profitable enough to them. I'd rather have an internet full of crap that I am free to add to than go back to those days. A few people getting free entertainment seems a cheap price to pay.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I have in my hand right now two SD chips, one, a 32GB micro SD chip, and a full size 128GB SD chip. I could mail either one to anybody, full of data. 32GB is 40+ hours of FLAC music, 30,000+ e-books (@ 1 megabyte per e-book) or maybe 4 DVD's.

Am I doing that? Absolutely not! But it can't be stopped, short of living in a totalitarian state.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/sto...1944531&page=1

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/sto...1944531&page=1

Find DVD's? Yes. Find pirated DVD's? No.

Fnid SD chip? yes. Figure out what's in it? Not necessarily so easy....

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I remember those days too. They were also the days when corporations who controlled what books could be published would turn their nose up at people like us with our tiny potential audience because we wouldn't be profitable enough to them. I'd rather have an internet full of crap that I am free to add to than go back to those days. A few people getting free entertainment seems a cheap price to pay.

We are also free to take away as well, meaning filter the garbage. Although I think there is a lot more to be done in that department.

Sometimes it does seem like much ado about nothing, how much compensation does anyone really need anyway?? There are going to be people who will support the authors monetarily, there are going to be people who support the authors in other ways, (talk about the books, write about the books) and there are going to be people who just want to read the books and could care less about who wrote the words they are reading.

This whole keeping words under lock and key thing has seriously

GOT TO GO!!!!!!!

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Find DVD's? Yes. Find pirated DVD's? No.

Fnid SD chip? yes. Figure out what's in it? Not necessarily so easy....

Well presumably when they find the DVDs they will inspect them to see what is on them before they are destroyed? That wouldn't really inconvenience people sending them for legit reasons, other than a bit of a delay in the post.

Not that it would be so easy for internet packets. I'm guessing I'm not the only person with online backups of legal content that would fail such tests?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Be very careful what you wish for.

Right now, I wish I'd never started writing...

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/sto...1944531&page=1

Customs officials in the U.K. hope one day the dogs will only signal when there are large collections of discs, which would more likely include illegally copied movies. ... Trainers say the dogs have been notifying customs agents of packages with discs in them. The packages have been opened but so far no pirated movies have been found.

So... customs officials open packages with DVDs in them, and are planning, perhaps, to check the contents of each of them? (Wow, incredible invasion of privacy there.) Do they check the first 30 seconds of each disc to find out if it starts up a pirated movie? Or actually inspect all the contents, taking half an hour or so to check every disc? Or maybe they're just looking at the labels, and if it says "Vacation Photos - Paris" in sharpie then it's assumed not to be pirated, but if it's got a printed cover of a movie, it's assumed to be pirated.

If they find what they believe to be "pirated DVDs"--how do they confirm that? They're not authorized agents of the copyright owner; they can't sue for infringement. They have no way to verify if John Q Traveller is a bootleg importer or an agent of Warner Bros, bringing home a stash of unauthorized movies from foreign countries back to Hollywood to distribute to various media techies so they can confirm what methods are used to make the discs.

And yes, if JQT is carrying 5,000 DVDs of Avatar, it's likely he's not working for WB. But if he's got 200 of them--he may be doing research on the bootleg dvd industry, and wants enough extras to try doing different things to them. The question of "is this person allowed to carry this many copies" isn't something a customs person is authorized to figure out, except for the range of "is he trying to sneak in goods intended for sale without paying the right taxes for them?"

But of course they're not going to find a lot of discs being imported. Discs are bulky; data is not. Easier for someone to upload a DVD's worth of content to Dropbox or another online storage place, zipped with a password so it's not available for casual download, and then download it when they get home. Burning DVDs costs more here but avoids the whole problem of getting salable goods past customs officials.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Customs officials in the U.K. hope one day the dogs will only signal when there are large collections of discs, ...

The one way to defeat the system would be for everybody to carry around a spindle of 100 dvds all the time. On each and every one of them all kinds of stupid, but not illegal, stuff. "What is this?" "Oh, I made a movie of a dog biting off the leg of a customs official, its hilarious, wanna see?".

[anamardoll]

Whoa, that's especially troubling given the article I read recently (can't find it now, don't care enough to keep looking, but here's a similar one) that sniffer dogs are highly inaccurate and seem to be responding to their handler's prejudices. (I.e., if the handler THINKS there is contraband because they were told beforehand, the dogs respond accordingly.)

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by elcreative

By illegal I mean acts that are either against criminal or civil law but if you want to quibble that usually means that you don't believe in people having any rights to anything that they create... and don't ascribe your thoughts to me... and people who make comments such as, "...your opinion isn't worth much attention." are generally better placed on "ignore" because they don't want to discuss and consider things, just state their beliefs and ignore anything that runs contrary to them...

You have accused Ana of "illegal acts."

I've asked you to specify what acts she has committed that you believe to be illegal.

Instead of replying by identifying the acts, you just blow some smoke about "acts that are against the law."

It's not quibbling to request you to be specific. The reason is that some copying is legal, and some illegal. From what I've read in her posts, she has done nothing illegal, but perhaps your eagle eye has spotted something I missed.

So either retract your accusation, or back it up with specifics.