Piracy is necessary and doesn't hurt revenues

[martienne]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

It is the hypocrisy that tends to get on peoples nerves. Harry goes on & on about pirates ripping off authors, and entitlement etc. and paying for everything. But he somehow doesn't equate it to applying to him when Amazon gives him money that he never gave them in the first place just for asking a question.

Right is right and wrong is wrong. Harry isn't entitled to the money anymore then a person who downloads from the DN is entitled to an unpaid for book!

If you are always going to spout black & white ideals, then you better make sure you don't then turn around a paint a target on your back for being hypocritical in being just as dishonest!

Aha - sorry I didn't pick up that the original post was an attack on copyright fascism. In that case he should pay every penny to Amazon.

Meanwhile, Amazon has been exposed as a MAJOR tax cheater in the UK.
They pay their staff minimum salary and mis-treat them according to many news reports, and don't take action to resolve the problem when revealed.

Their tactics to dominate the market in the countries where they are active, is notorious. I believe the Germans and French were shocked to discover their ruthless tactics.

The British government gave them the opportunity to do the right thing and start paying taxes based on their actual presence in the UK. They didn't do it, but shamelessly continue to claim that it's right for them to not pay taxes in the UK.

Conclusion: Amazon is not a nice or decent company

As far as I am concerned, this to me makes them 100% fair game for any Brit to help themselves to their content and distribute it to other Brits who have been defrauded of rightfully owed taxes by this company's activities.

If Harry still wants to be loyal to a company that behaves like this in his country, then that's his democratic right of course... But Amazon doesn't want to play nice against Britain, so why should Brits play nice with them? Think about it, Harry!

Amazon employees if you are reading this: Pay your taxes and treat your staff like human beings and you'll find that people have a lot more sympathy for your quest for profitability. What you are doing is an insult to the UK and her people.

[cfrizz]

Amazon is NO different from any other large company. They all do what they can to get out of paying taxes, they all want to be the dominate business, they all want never ending upward stock prices.

The U.S. has cruises taking off every day from various ports but not one of those ships call the U.S. it's home port, why? to get out of paying taxes. It's why most major companies outsource everything they possibly can to avoid paying taxes and paying Americans livable wages.

There is no such thing as a honest corporation!

[The Old Man]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Amazon is NO different from any other large company. They all do what they can to get out of paying taxes, they all want to be the dominate business, they all want never ending upward stock prices.

The U.S. has cruises taking off every day from various ports but not one of those ships call the U.S. it's home port, why? to get out of paying taxes. It's why most major companies outsource everything they possibly can to avoid paying taxes and paying Americans livable wages.

There is no such thing as a honest corporation!

If they are within the law they are honest. Change the law or reduce the taxes.
If I make a deduction when I file my tax that is lawful and you think that deduction is shameful or unpatriotic (as Obama does) then change the law.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by The Old Man

If they are within the law they are honest. Change the law or reduce the taxes.

If I make a deduction when I file my tax that is lawful and you think that deduction is shameful or unpatriotic (as Obama does) then change the law.

There are a lot of grey areas in the law and variations between countries. There are also variations on how vigorously they are enforced. You can exploit these by setting up a sock puppet entity in another country or just that you know you won't get caught. If you exploit tax loop holes most people think that's ok. If you use child labour to build your phones then a lot of people wouldn't consider your actions honest although it might be legal.

That gets back to the point of the thread. If an individual end user creates a sock puppet to pretend they're in another country then it's 'piracy' and they claim it as theft. If a company sets up a shell corporation in another country to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, then they claim it's good business. I personally think it's more beneficial for the law makers to close the tax loop holes then shutdown the file sharing sites or close VPN companies. In the mean time the MPAA will count all access to file sharing sites as lost revenue and some people will consider tax havens as lost revenue.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Barcey

That gets back to the point of the thread. If an individual end user creates a sock puppet to pretend they're in another country then it's 'piracy' and they claim it as theft.

No, that's not the point of this thread. This user didn't "pretend to be in another country"; she simply downloaded pirated version of the programmes.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, that's not the point of this thread. This user didn't "pretend to be in another country"; she simply downloaded pirated version of the programmes.

I was trying to bring the thread back to the original discussion.

There was what she believed to be a market failure that blocked her from accessing content that she would have paid to have access to. She used a file sharing site to access that content (a file sharing site that continues to operate because of variations in international laws). She wrote a blog entry complaining about the market failure and that the MPAA would have counted her access to that content as lost revenue rather then a market failure.

I'm not bothered that the file sharing site exists or what people use as justification for accessing it. In the global scope of world problems it's way down in my priority list. You feel differently. I get it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Barcey

There was what she believed to be a market failure that blocked her from accessing content that she would have paid to have access to.

She believes it to be a market failure. I claim that it's her responsibility to check the scope of the streaming service she's buying a subscription to. Had she done so, she would have known before she travelled to Germany that she would not have been able to access the service from there.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HarryT

She believes it to be a market failure. I claim that it's her responsibility to check the scope of the streaming service she's buying a subscription to. Had she done so, she would have known before she travelled to Germany that she would not have been able to access the service from there.

That still doesn't prevent the market failure. Anything that prevents a producer and a willing customer from making a commercial transaction (to their mutual economic benefit) is a market failure.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

That still doesn't prevent the market failure. Anything that prevents a producer and a willing customer from making a commercial transaction (to their mutual economic benefit) is a market failure.

But was this a market failure? Perhaps there was a video streaming service in Germany that she could have subscribed to? (I don't know the answer to that.) The fallacy lies (IMHO) in assuming that buying streaming rights in one country should give you world-wide access. Streaming services would have to charge a lot more than they currently do to be able to sell world-wide rights.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But was this a market failure? Perhaps there was a video streaming service in Germany that she could have subscribed to? (I don't know the answer to that.) The fallacy lies (IMHO) in assuming that buying streaming rights in one country should give you world-wide access. Streaming services would have to charge a lot more than they currently do to be able to sell world-wide rights.

Why? Stop for a second and ask, why does a producer have to go through a huge number of middlemen to reach the customer nowadays? If you aren't going through a large number of middlemen, explain to me why producer X has to charge lots more money to deliver a product - streaming - to anywhere in the world? (Where's the extra cost?)

I can see the cutting out of a middleman, but at the same time, if the middleman doesn't provide the service in question, at all, they're not being cut out of a profit, because they're not getting a profit in the first place, by choice.

To me, that's a market failure.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

At the risk of being banned - HarryT, you are completely and totally wrong in the above statement.

IN THIS THREAD, POST #56:

Direct quote:

" Here is the US letter of the law (from the Digital Millenium Copyright Act):

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title...; to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner.

A region code (in the US) qualified as a "technological measure".

I make no comment on othe countries' laws.... "

In the US, it would be a violation of the DCMA. Now I agree that no cases have been brought to trial, and it might fail under US Constitution First Amendment rights, but until a case is brought to trial and appealed to make that determination, one way or the other, the law stands...

An unenforced law is still a law.

Or are you saying that you can purchase an out-of-region disc, legally, so you can look at the disc on a shelf. because if you played it, that would be illegal under US law.

I've said this for eBooks and I'll now say it for DVD. This is a gray area and will be until there is a legal ruling in a court of law. FAIR USE was in place before DMCA. There is nothing at all legally that says that DMCA trumps Fair Use. So unless it's ruled in a court of law, it may very well not be illegal to do what HarryT is doing. IT's not black & white. Please don't go quoting the DMCA saying that's how it is, because that's not how it is.

Do you know 100% that Fair Use is trumped by DMCA? I don't and I dont know anyone else who does know. So get this in front of a court of law and then we'll know. But for now, it's not valid to quote the DMCA and say that's being done is illegal.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Why? Stop for a second and ask, why does a producer have to go through a huge number of middlemen to reach the customer nowadays?

Because every content producer doesn't want to have to provide a server farm, account management and billing facilities, etc, to stream content. It's not "a huge number of middlemen"; it's one middle-man - the streaming company.

If you aren't going through a large number of middlemen, explain to me why producer X has to charge lots more money to deliver a product - streaming - to anywhere in the world? (Where's the extra cost?)

The price that the streaming company will pay to buy the right to stream content from a producer depends on the size of the region they're paying for the right to stream to. A larger region = higher cost.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

That is why region-free DVD players are legal.
Importing is not illegal.

Importing may be illegal depending on import and obscenity laws in any given country. At the very least importing may be subject to tariffs depending on the trade agreements between nations as well.

[arjaybe]

Regional restrictions are an attempt to create artificial scarcity, to cynically try to increase monetary value by offering less product.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Because every content producer doesn't want to have to provide a server farm, account management and billing facilities, etc, to stream content. It's not "a huge number of middlemen"; it's one middle-man - the streaming company.



The price that the streaming company will pay to buy the right to stream content from a producer depends on the size of the region they're paying for the right to stream to. A larger region = higher cost.

But it also means more sales. Nor is it necessary that the producer charge a flat fee. They could charge a fee per stream. At which point, it doesn't matter where the content is being streamed.

HarryT, I'm not trying to annoy you. I'm just trying to show alternatives, in this day and time.