Comics piracy crackdown

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Whatever you call it, you are hurting someone and are trying to explain it away, to justify it. You are trying to make the act of hurting someone sound trivial. That is why Kenny gets upset.

Anyway, for the moment these repeated discussions of this subject matter are not advancing any consensus.

A: I am not not hurting anyone, I'm arguing a point.

B: Kenny is the one who introduced inflammatory language. If the law calls it infringement, why can't we agree on it as a neutral term? You don't see me calling it liberation. You also don't see me calling pro life people right win misogynistic anti-freedom asshats and pro choice people satanic baby murderers. Rather than tackle the issue, people kenny disagrees with are being demonized.

If we all stick to the neutral term, the one used in the actual copytight law we could stay at least closer to the topics in these threads instead of having to have this fight over and over. All I'm asking here is to avoid language that is sure to provoke people.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Goshzilla

Wait a sec, I was pretty sure Mp3.com was not in the business of piracy, heck from what I remembered, their catalog consisted of just independent artists posted by the artists themselves.

Napster and Kazaa though are completely different, since their users were trading pirated material.

I bought an Astronauts compilation from mp3.com years ago that wasn't authorised, when I asked the singer about it he didn't know anything about it at all.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

That is, in some cases at least, open to debate, but let's not go into this here. It's a question of terminology, and I for one feel we should always strive for sharpness in expression. Might just be me, of course.

Sharpness in expression is just the point. "Copyright violation" has lost its edge, since nowadays many tend to think that copying an author's work without his or her consent is fine (it is good for society, someone said). So, lacking a more suitable expression, Kenny uses "theft" since he considers the degree of wrongdoing to be the same as when taking a physical object.

If you can coin a new phrase, that accurately expresses that such copying is harming the authors and that it is wrong, be my guest.

[stustaff]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And the key in this is what is "something" and the rights that are associated with "something."

Some people feel that because it is easy to make a digital copy and there is no tangible object "other than a file" and the original still exists then hey, no harm done, copy away. The fact is that that file is property in the same sense as a paper book or video or cable bandwidth and if you don't have permission to take it .....

Just as in the subject and the o.p. the website did not have permission to do what they were doing with the property of the companies and have suffered the consequences.

see thats where i get stuck, you arent taking it! your use of the word 'take' seems completely wrong to me...you are in this example copying it!

if I take something of yours that means you no longer have it! that isnt the case with copying somethig where you still have the original.

but again this proves you wrong the consequences they are suffering are for COPYright violation not theft!

[stustaff]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

If you can coin a new phrase, that accurately expresses that such copying is harming the authors and that it is wrong, be my guest.

why coin a phrase based on a false opinion.? there is plenty of evidence by many many authors that their books being available for free has actually benefitted them financially.

the movie industry posted record profits once again and the music industry record sales numbers.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Not sure specifically what you are referring to, maybe if you fill in the details or give a specific incident.

http://boingboing.net/2009/07/30/the...e-of-supe.html
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com...-kirbys-heirs/

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by stustaff

why coin a phrase based on a false opinion.? there is plenty of evidence by many many authors that their books being available for free has actually benefitted them financially.

the movie industry posted record profits once again and the music industry record sales numbers.

Giving away stuff for free may well be a smart move, agreed. Especially for unknown authors. The important part, however, is that the authors should be the ones who make that decision. If you think they are so dumb that they don't realize that being copied on the darknet is good for them -- why help them out?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

...

If you can coin a new phrase, that accurately expresses that such copying is harming the authors and that it is wrong, be my guest.

Agreed, but we've been through that whole discussion a couple of times (trying to find a "new word" to describe it) and no more resolution than in any of these piracy/copyright/theft discussions.

About the only thing the various parties seem to agree on is that the laws need to change (and there is little agreement as to what those changes should be).

[stustaff]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Giving away stuff for free may well be a smart move, agreed. Especially for unknown authors. The important part, however, is that the authors should be the ones who make that decision. If you think they are so dumb that they don't realize that being copied on the darknet is good for them -- why help them out?

because it also helps me out, I first read the wheelk of time book as a e-copy about 9 months ago and loved it and now have the first 5 on my bookshelf at home and the rest I'll get in Ebook, I found a great series and the author/estate gets more money than they would otherwise have done.

however to be fair I have read a book that I may have bought and then not bought it so that author lost out.

I still spend pretty much exactly the same on comics books and movies that I always did, before having stuff available for 'free'

WWhat i think is key is finding out the TRUE cost of copyright violation, personally I dont believe a downloaded copy = one lost sale.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

http://boingboing.net/2009/07/30/the...e-of-supe.html
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com...-kirbys-heirs/

Sounds like the typical legal bullshit. In the case of the original Superman comic it sounds like the creators signed over the rights, so I would not call it theft, but certainly not what I'd call moral or fair-play either. Of course this was the 1930's and this sort of thing was rampant in the music, literature, and other venues.

In the case of Jack Kirby, it's very difficult to say. Companies are always going to try and grab everything they can. Again that doesn't make it right or moral, but the courts will have to give the final legal answer.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Whatever you call it, you are hurting someone

So now it is GBH as well as theft and rape? I agree with what others have said -- why not just call it copyright infringement? Everyone understands what that means, and nobody is likely to get confused.

Just out of interest though, what is it that people object to about copyright infringement? Is it that some people are getting something for nothing and you're not? It can't be about any perceived loss of income for writers, otherwise libraries and second hand book shops would generate the same level of hatred.

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And the key in this is what is "something" and the rights that are associated with "something."

Some people feel that because it is easy to make a digital copy and there is no tangible object "other than a file" and the original still exists then hey, no harm done, copy away. The fact is that that file is property in the same sense as a paper book or video or cable bandwidth and if you don't have permission to take it .....

Just as in the subject and the o.p. the website did not have permission to do what they were doing with the property of the companies and have suffered the consequences.

There is no harm done when a COPY is made, now when something is done with that copy, there's something that can be debated but the mere act of creating the copy is neutral. I also object to the very idea that a collection of 1's and 0's can be property. Governments can assign rights over the 1's an 0's it can also arbitrarily take them away and the 1's and 0's won't disappear. Rights aren't owned, they're grated, they're licensed, they're revoked, they're transferred hell you can even say they're possessed but they're not owned. Things can be owned but abstract ideas like rights and permissions? You need a different vocabulary and a different set of rules.

Just as an airplane is not a car and thus we have pilots and drivers, the idea of a hammer and an actual hammer are not the same thing and cannot be described in the same terms. Can you honestly not understand the difference? If not, then just for once trust me when I say using the word infringement doesn't concede any argument about the morality or legality of an act.

Of course if your goal is just to anger and insult, keep using loaded words.

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by stustaff

see thats where i get stuck, you arent taking it! your use of the word 'take' seems completely wrong to me...you are in this example copying it!

if I take something of yours that means you no longer have it! that isnt the case with copying somethig where you still have the original.

but again this proves you wrong the consequences they are suffering are for COPYright violation not theft!

It's a loaded term, taking SOUNDS bad so that's what he says, it's like the tricks pollsters use when they want a question answered a certain way as opposed to just getting an accurate count.

Tip. Don't trust partisan pollsters if they have a bias on the topic it'll show in the results.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by stustaff

see thats where i get stuck, you arent taking it! your use of the word 'take' seems completely wrong to me...you are in this example copying it!

This particular website didn't let you download them in the traditional sense that you could save a copy for yourself. You had to look at individual pages in a web browser. (I suppose you could get them from your internet cache if you really wanted to).

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by stustaff

see thats where i get stuck, you arent taking it! your use of the word 'take' seems completely wrong to me...you are in this example copying it!

if I take something of yours that means you no longer have it! that isnt the case with copying somethig where you still have the original.

but again this proves you wrong the consequences they are suffering are for COPYright violation not theft!

The reason you are not getting it is that you are limiting you definition of what theft is. You are limiting it to only a physical item. I think it applies to much beyond that, theft of service, theft of intellectual PROPERTY, theft of ideas/concepts etc. In this new digital world where virtually everything is now stored in files on computers we need to change the way we think about property and the intellectual property(there's that word again) laws need to change to account for the brave new world. (there are many other aspects of intellectual property laws that should change as well such as the length, who can hold those rights (corporations should not) etc. etc.)

Anyway I'm going to bow out of that part of the discussion because it's just following the same path all of those threads do. If there are additional information on comics and copyright as per the o.p. I'm still interested in discussing it...

Enjoy!