Hundreds of thousands of ordinary people worldwide have had their lives destroyed by this.
For enjoying art.
The War on the fans is immoral, hateful and wasteful.
Those who enact it have stolen more from artists than anyone.
For enjoying art.
The War on the fans is immoral, hateful and wasteful.
Those who enact it have stolen more from artists than anyone.
So thread detachment, ok, but it is not off topic IMHO.
Your mod intuition is mighty fine tho', so I'll stop posting this thread and go write a book :)
Most commonly it is lost internet access or fines of only a few thousands.
A few thousand is beyond a lot of people, especially in this endless recession.
It can be confiscation of equipment and has led to loss of employment.
People have been jailed for it, faced years of uncertainty over extradition.
Parents, children, teachers, grandmothers, pretty much everyone knows someone who has had at least some trouble.
That is not to mention the technological stagnation, the denial of the blind the right to convert documents to speech, works unavailable in whole countries, the trumping of fair-use by DRM, the hours lost trying to convert media, the denial of access to publicly funded science.
The invasive anti-privacy laws, the time wasted fighting SOPA, PIPA, the clipper chip, &c.
Those who stood in court up faced legal destruction akin to Jammie Thomas, in every country.
The chilling effect on innovation & technological takeup.
Napster was the killer app that kickstarted broadband adoption in the UK, nevermore.
Kids who love music would get into coding - but music startups, even highly legitimate ones are a total no go - the monopolies are too entrenched and stupid.
New cultural forms, remix and mashup are outlawed - NWA's original wall of sound was a cultural dead end as licensing the thousands of samples is impossible.
A entire new form of black American music outlawed.
The loss of orphaned works and rare episodes.
The prosecution, hounding & subsequent death of Aaron Schwartz.
The harm cause by these monopolies is vast and unnecessary.
It could be solved overnight by a blanket license and collection agencies - just like it was for radio.
I would love to read a blog post that went into detail about all the claims you've made here.
My argument is there is no need for any of this - it is a legal error.
Simply legislate a compulsory license, media and device taxes already exist. Distribution agencies - already in place for radio and libraries.
The correct test for disruptive technology is substantial non-infringing use.
This war on fans is as unnecessary and ineffective as the drug war - calling it "bucaneering" doesn't make sharing immoral or dumb law effective.
Criminalising what everyone is doing and feels is natural and right is a fail - this is a vice law.
Sharing isn't evil.
Sharing the things you love, knowledge, song, jokes, tales is as old as time and what makes us human.
There are plenty of things to share culturally that don't involve theft. Feel free to visit a library and likely walk away with more personal growth anyway.
>"Criminalising what everyone is doing and feels is natural and right is a fail"
You can't honestly believe this. This is empirically ridiculous.
None of these 3 things are theft:
* Enjoying art / downloading;
* Copyright infringement / publishing unauthorised copies en mass / uploading / seeding or "bucaneering" as you put it;
* Remixing / mashups / fan art / performing & modifing work / covering songs / innovating.
Theft deprives someone of something, you are conflating theft with this discussion - a common weasel word.
> Yes everyone shares all the time it is natural and human and those that don't were brought up wrong.
> I do not think I am entitled to anything, life is struggle, you fight to get things, you fight to keep them but I hate being shut out and I hate to see anyone shut out, especially on grounds of poverty or censorship.
I consider artificial scarcity of knowledge & culture heinious.
I utterly dissaprove of everything the RIAA & MPAA do and lobby for.
I believe copyright maximalism to support an incompetent monopoly is an anti-capitalist protection racket.
They abuse copyright to control access to markets, using their monopolies on distribution to force artists into terrible dictatorial contracts and then withold monies and prevent artists from releasing anything that competes with their chosen anodised 'stars' singing appropriated culture on autotune and force it down eveyones throats.
This was their business model for the entire 20th century, music & film suffered terribly from the 'studio system'. So much garbage on the radio & cinema all the time, independant music & film was marginalised and starved out.
Their iron clad grip on publishing & distribution faltered and culture bloomed despite their luddite ravings.
Now weak politicians are bought to legally preserve an antiquated, immoral business model that now harms everyone and everything & stunted progress in the 21st by over a decade - yes progress happens in spite of them but is quickly criminalised.
I believe the fix is simple, give them a fraction of what they ask for in license fees - they are hopelessly inefficient fat cats monopolists and will adapt or die in a fair non-protectionist market.
Enact compulsory blanket licensing compensated using the existing levels of tax on media.
Just like for radio and libraries.
Everyone can do everything - they get paid by share of the media tax alloted to artists by distribution metrics - pay artists straight - cut out the monopolists monopoly.
The Internet is a machine for efficient copying & dissemination.
It is the Gutenberg press. Liberating cultural dispersion like printing liberated knowledge.
They would survive for ages on license payments - because they own the rights to nearly the entire 20th century of music & film.
Reduce copyright terms to ~25-40 years then it goes to the public domain as originally agreed.
Encourage new art to license under GPL to ensure a rich contempory commons before it reverts to the public domain.
At least break up the monopolies, one of the few useful things govt can do to ensure a free and fair market.
The whole thing could be fixed overnight and with the ensuing efficiency there would be a new rennaisance of culture and learning and innovation.
The Scottish Enlightenment came 20 years after basic education was given to all Scots by the Parish act.
> Before that entitlement to basic education was unthinkable.
Which of course led to Hume & Smith who inspired French Idealism and Benjamin Franklin and threw of the shackles off a religious state & invented Capitalism.
Yes freeing up culture from needless antiquated protectionism would change the world.
That was the way things always were since time immemorial; that is the right way.
Sharing the light does not diminish it.
> Yes, I honestly believe art can change the world for the better - free art, freedom to create, freedom to pursue happiness.