The Pirate Bay sunk in the UK

[DasFuchs]

Right, because copyright is the only way for studios/producers to recoup their investment.   

No, but charging money for it is. Even the "pay what you want" model implies that some transaction of funds is expected. Piracy involves no transaction of money. In fact, the lack of copyright protection would be a worse model than we have now. The second anything was released to the public, any idiot could copy it and sell it without having to kick any money back to the people who actually produced it or own it.

Personally I'd revise that as piracy can involve money and cannot involve money. Likewise legal distribution can involve money and cannot involve money, depending on who and why it's being distributed in both cases. The only solid part of piracy is really the unwanted recording, usage, and/or distribution of something in the issues of media and such. Spybot and AVG would be good examples of legal without money.

and I do agree with Hunter. Game companies basically give you a virus to ensure their product isn't misused...that works for a few days after the first release. They make it such a bitch to play anything people are driven to find cracks and ways around it so they can enjoy it without the fucking pissy bullshit hoops.
It's people like Hunter I'd respect enough to pay for anything I got simply because Hunter isn't going to fuck me sideways to use some game. Hell, one time code punch and play to my heart's content? there's no need for me to go off and find a way to break it then. Pirates will still pirate, but meantime you're not pushing people that normally wouldn't to actually do it, which I think is the real core of the issue when it comes to games. Pirating wouldn't be so widespread without the increasingly bigger push to curb it.
With music, frankly, I refuse to shell out 15 bucks for a cd with one good song on it and the rest being shit, which is what most are. Prior to having a way to pay for it online, I'd copy songs I liked off the internet even with the option to buy one song and leave the others, then burn it to a cd. Hell, I dunno why they just don't go the way youtube and Hulu did, put up add space and offer the music free. They still get their kickback, hell, maybe even more than before since people would have no reason not to use their sites instead of relying on pirated stuff.

[RavynousHunter]

I, personally, would prefer organizations like the RIAA and MPAA get off their asses and try to actually solve the fucking problem instead of kicking, screaming, and trying to destroy their "enemies."  You know, like children.

Ya know, its a sad day when children are more calm and level-headed than many adults.

[Witchyjoshy]

Here's a fact:

There will always be pirates.  They will always pirate things.  And there will always be varying degrees of piracy.  Such as pirates who just grab something for free, or pirates who copy and sell things in a black market, or to poorer countries.

The fact is, they exist, they will exist, and the best thing you can do is reward people for buying the game legally.  Provide benefits for having a copy that isn't pirated.

On the other hand, punishing people for buying your game will make them more inclined to pirate, because they are being rewarded for pirating (namely, breaking the thing that's punishing them)

People love to blame the DRM on the pirates, but the fact of the matter is, it's like injecting poison into store-bought fruit in an attempt to stop people from stealing fruit straight from the trees.  It's ass-backwards.  They made a mistake, and it's theirs, and rather than playing the blame game, blame the people who took the erroneous action in the first place.

Keeping game availability up will also decrease pirating.

As far as movies and music go... well, I'm not too sure about that.  I do know, however, that Youtube's draconian policies are not stopping much in the way of piracy, but instead legitimate uses of music.  Free use exists for a reason, and Youtube violates the hell out of it.

[m52nickerson]

One word: YouTube.

In the eyes of the companies that produce the content, The Pirate Bay and YouTube are the same thing. Ever listened to a song on YouTube? Congratulations, you are a criminal.

Sorry, it does not work that way.  Many times the owners of the song will put them up on YouTube.  Then you also have fair use.  So unless you are ripping content from YouTube you are not breaking any laws.   

Please tell me how it is illegal to violate the copyright law of a county you aren't even in. How can you violate copyright if there they have no copyright to violate?

You violate the laws of the country the material is copy written in.  Just because you are in a different country does not mean anything.

[m52nickerson]

Who exactly is being hurt by that?  No sales revenues are lost; in fact, no one is losing anything.  By supporting litigation by copyright owners for works not for sale, you are supporting copyright trolling, which is a serious misuse of intellectual property rights.

You are hurting the owner of the work, the copyright owner.  It is their content to do with as they see fit, which includes not selling it to you. 

Further more you don't have to hurt anyone to be a thief.

So by giving free publicity to bands these people might otherwise not hear or even know about, I'm stealing from them?  Do you know how many bands became popular and increase album sales through word-of-mouth and tape/CD trading?

Unless the content owner wants to allow such sharing you are still providing others with illegal content, which is stealing.

Let me explain one more time:  if I take a physical object from you, such as your car, that's theft.  If I were to make an exact replica or working model of your car, and didn't take the one that belonged to you...that might be patent infringement (maybe) but it sure as hell isn't theft.  It's not the same thing.

And I couldn't help but notice that no one has refuted my arguments about investment capital or the big media companies distributing file sharing software.  Hmm...

Let me explain that your idea of what is and what is not thief is flat ass wrong.  You are simply trying to twist the definition as to not label what you do, or what to, as theft.  It is.  Deal with it or don't do it.  Taking content that you don't pay for, or have no right to make you a thief.

[Witchyjoshy]

m52nickerson, get your head out of your ass, kay?

[largeham]

Sorry, it does not work that way.  Many times the owners of the song will put them up on YouTube.  Then you also have fair use.  So unless you are ripping content from YouTube you are not breaking any laws.   

The 3rd ed. of Oxford's The Australian Student's Colour Dictionary states;
steal verb 1. to take another person's property without right or permission, to take dishonestly

Therefore, if you have ever watched a video on Youtube with the owner did upload, then you are now a thief. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it still be theft if the artist placed a song on Youtube against the wishes of their recording company.

[m52nickerson]

Sorry, it does not work that way.  Many times the owners of the song will put them up on YouTube.  Then you also have fair use.  So unless you are ripping content from YouTube you are not breaking any laws.   

The 3rd ed. of Oxford's The Australian Student's Colour Dictionary states;
steal verb 1. to take another person's property without right or permission, to take dishonestly

Therefore, if you have ever watched a video on Youtube with the owner did upload, then you are now a thief. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it still be theft if the artist placed a song on Youtube against the wishes of their recording company.

You know what, your right.  You maybe unaware that you are doing but you would still be a thief in those situations.

[largeham]

Whoops, that should read "which the owner did not upload".

[Patches]

Here's a question for someone with more legal expertise than me that I've been wondering about:

How do intellectual property rights intersect with free speech rights?

I ask this because I know numerous examples of things like DVD commentaries and interviews that have had to be edited, or are otherwise prohibited from distribution in certain countries, solely because the person talking made a reference to a copyrighted or trademarked product.  How does that work?  What about going on stage in front of an audience and singing a copyrighted song?  How does having legal repercussions for that behavior not end up a violation of free speech?  Why can we only write works of fiction involving people living in a generic, brand-name-less world containing no recognizable commercial cultural references without having to pay someone for the right to even mention them?

I think people have a right to their works, but going so far as to allow private entities to impose punishments on people for the manner they choose to express themselves seems downright unconstitutional.

[VirtualStranger]

One word: YouTube.

In the eyes of the companies that produce the content, The Pirate Bay and YouTube are the same thing. Ever listened to a song on YouTube? Congratulations, you are a criminal.

Sorry, it does not work that way.  Many times the owners of the song will put them up on YouTube.  Then you also have fair use.  So unless you are ripping content from YouTube you are not breaking any laws.

You have no idea how streaming video works, do you?

Please tell me how it is illegal to violate the copyright law of a county you aren't even in. How can you violate copyright if there they have no copyright to violate?

You violate the laws of the country the material is copy written in.  Just because you are in a different country does not mean anything.

I guess that means that every time I drive on the right side of the road here in the US, then I am breaking UK traffic laws.

That's how stupid you sound.

[largeham]

I'm not sure in general, but I know the ABC (Australian) radio is not allowed to state trademarked names (unless it is required to for a story, etc) so they can't be seen as advertising the product. E.g., someone will say: "for breakfast I had toast with chocolate spread", not "I had toast with Nutella".

[Witchyjoshy]

I guess that means that every time I drive on the right side of the road here in the US, then I am breaking UK traffic laws.

That's how stupid you sound.

The difference is that driving in US roads does not affect UK roads, while technically, pirating from US companies affects US companies, so your allegory is bullshit, too.

[starseeker]

I guess that means that every time I drive on the right side of the road here in the US, then I am breaking UK traffic laws.

That's how stupid you sound.

The difference is that driving in US roads does not affect UK roads, while technically, pirating from US companies affects US companies, so your allegory is bullshit, too.

How can a sale be lost to piracy if that sale could never be made in the first place? I'm wondering this.

[Witchyjoshy]

I guess that means that every time I drive on the right side of the road here in the US, then I am breaking UK traffic laws.

That's how stupid you sound.

The difference is that driving in US roads does not affect UK roads, while technically, pirating from US companies affects US companies, so your allegory is bullshit, too.

How can a sale be lost to piracy if that sale could never be made in the first place? I'm wondering this.

I wasn't actually talking about sales lost.

However minutely, the US corporations are affected.  I guess their feelings get hurt or something?