Quote: Original post by SumDude
Mayrel:

Hmm... so someone doing lowly garbage collecting should make equal pay as a doctor? Even though the doctor went through much more training and preparation for his job.

How many doctors train for years because they want to get rich? Almost none of them. The vast majority train for years because they want to be doctors. Who would you rather have as a doctor, somebody who really cares about being a doctor, or someone who is 'only in it for the money'? Who do you think would be the better doctor?

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People that have studied their entire life don't exactly always become millionaires and thats the thing about Capitalism. You take risks and in risks you can lose or win. Those that win can enjoy it and even the ones that lose don't always lose out. They have had experience taking a risk and it looks good on a resume. If you ran a company that fell through maybe someone will hire you as a manager.

This is not a game. If you worked for a company that fell through maybe someone will give you some change so you don't die of exposure that night.

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When i said the dying in the ditch thing i was refering to people that take advantage of our government.

That's okay then. Anyone who takes advantage of our government deserves to die, no questions asked.

Quote: Original post by CrystalParadigm
If you willfully infringe on a copyright, it is considered theft of intellectual property and you will be prosecuted as a criminal.

No. If you willfully infringe on a copyright, it is considered infringement of copyright.

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Piracy is a crime punishable by law. The owner of the copyright may also sue for damages in civil litigation.

That doesn't magically cause it to be theft.

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The way you define licensing is also misleading. When you "purchase" a book, you are not purchasing rights to copy that book, you are purchasing the right to own a copy of that book to read or resell. When you purchase a game, you are purchasing a right to own a copy of that game to use, or resell if the End User License Agreement allows this. It is still a purchase, regardless of how you word it.

That's completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not copyright violation is theft.

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Last year, the US Federal Government arrested and sentenced over 3000 distributers of crackz and warez. A young woman in national news was recently arrested and sentenced for distributing .mp3 files via file-sharing.

Which doesn't mean that copyright violation is theft.

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Make no mistake. Piracy is a crime.

Oh, please. You know nobody denied it was a crime. You also know that the debate is on whether or not it should continue to be a crime.

Quote: Original post by CrystalParadigm
No, instead you stole the Copyright Owner's EXCLUSIVE right to make copies of their own original work.

The copyright holder does not have an exclusive right to make copies of their own original work, they have a nearly exclusive right.

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Just because what you are stealing is intangible does NOT mean that you are not stealing.

No, it doesn't. What means that you are not stealing is that it is not, by definition.

Legally, to constitute theft there must be intent permanently to deprive or defraud another person of the use and benefit of [the] property.

Clearly, no amount of copyright violation leaves the copyright holder unable to exercise their own right to make a copy. Therefore, copyright violation is not theft.

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And the fact is that even if you do not distribute, if you get caught with just possessing pirated software you can still be arrested. It doesn't happen very often, in the same way that people who violate the speed limit don't always get a ticket, but it has happened. An example: people who purchase illegal cable boxes to steal cable TV from the cable company are arrested all the time.

Although, of course, they aren't stealing cable TV. If they were, nobody else would be able to watch it.

Quote: Original post by thedevdan

Quote: probably the vast majority of people have pirated. should we have draconian law written arbitarily by the elite against the majority?

You can't just throw around stuff like that. First of all, you have no idea who has pirated. Second, assuming most people have, is it fair to punish those who haven't? Under what moral grounds is it fair to do so?

Generally speaking, it is unlawful to walk around with loaded weapons and point them at people's heads: even though most people wouldn't actually kill anyone. Under what moral grounds is it fair to 'punish' those who don't plan to shoot people in the head by prohibiting them from pointing loaded weapons at others?

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Quote: Instead what I'm doing is trying to be pragmatic. The developers and publishers are worried about piracy - i am. Their concerns are valid. It doesnt mean their response is.

If there response isn't valid, let them pay, not everyone else.

Ah. So, the developers and publishers should pay? A good plan.

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people should be wary when you propose outlawing a mass activity. It just seems cold and facist.

If, in a society, rape and murder is common, does that make it right? Would I be fascist if I beleived they should be illegal? Do you beleive what is right and wrong is dictated by the whim of the majority?

He only say that people should be wary. Mass activities shouldn't usually be unlawful. When they are, something is wrong. Whether it is a fault with society (as would be the case if rape or murder was common) or with the law (as, IMO, is the case with piracy) deserves investigation.

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The purpose of government is just the opposite: protect the minority from the majority.

The purpose of government is also to protect the majority from the minority.

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Quote: more nonsense. the internet has developed capitalistic hapazardly in regions were there is already a semblance of telecoms network - like britain. But in many of europes developing provinces like estonia and others government intervention in the infrastructure has really enhanced things.

In every backwards country like those, businesses either are banned from putting in place infastructure, too heavily taxed and regulated, or do not want to invest in something that big that they know the government will take from them and nationalize.

Backward country. I like that. I suppose you can prove that Estonia has not benefitted from government intervention. I suppose you can prove that if Estonia nationalises a private industry, the government doesn't reimburse its former owners.

I note that Estonia has higher GDP growth, lower unemployment, less people at minimum wage, higher industrial growth, and a two hundred times lower national debt than the United States.

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Quote: he state can provide the direction for others to follow - otherwise you get people randomly pulling in all sorts of directions leading to an inefficient use of resources. this is why socialistic approaches are more efficient in practice - nevermind what the ivory tower economists think as they mathematically masterbate on the blackboard.

Never mind what years of history have taught us. Never mind what America has taight us. Never mind what China has taught us.

As much as it pains me, I have to agree with thedevdan. Planned economies do not work. No man is smart enough to predict how an economy will behave. You need redundancy, but a planned economy sees redundancy as inefficient, and so works to eliminate it.

The only system that gives everyone the equal right to live their life is socialism, but the only system that actually works is capitalism. The only fair system is a hybrid.

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Never min what Europe's decaying economy has taught us.

Europe is, on the whole, not socialist.

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Quote: At some points it is amusing to point out despite the properganda clung by some so tightly - the real truth is:
capitalists deal in fantasy, socialists deal in reality.

OK, where in history has socialism showed itself to be better than capitalism? Keep in mind the US, Europe, and China.

Define 'better'. In the UK, if I have a life-threatening illness, I can get treatment via public healthcare even if I can't afford it. I think that's 'better' than private healthcare.

Mayrel, OMG are you that dense?

Punishable Under Section 2319 of Title 18

The copyright holder has the EXCLUSIVE right to reproduce their own work. Fair use only applies to items that are susceptible to fair use. There is no such thing as fair use for software. You can't copy only a page of a piece of software. You can't copy only 15 lines of code and expect it to work. Screenshots are not considered fair use if they contain registrable elements, and copying screenshots is not piracy anyway. The rights to copy a piece of software are owned by the copyright holder. That means, get this, they own those rights. If you copy a piece of copyrighted software, you are stealing the copyright owner's right to exclusively copy their own work, and to benefit from those copies by sale. It's that simple. Yes, it is. I have provided the copyright laws and punishments already in this thread. If you continue to maintain that copyright infringement is not equivalent to theft, then you do so at your own risk.

As for the original argument in this thread. If a society has no contingency for Intellectual Property, nobody will want to create works. The fact is, people don't make games to make games. People make games to make money. Dean R. Koontz also said that Writers do not write for the art, they write to make money. If everything that is created just goes into public domain with little or no compensation for the creator, there will be no incentive to contribute to that public domain. There are exceptions to this (kudos to all the freeware makers who are independently wealthy), by my point is that they are the exception, rather than the rule. The entertainment industry would dissolve if theft of Intellectual Property Rights was not recognized. That would solve the problem. No more entertainment, therefore piracy is not possible. Wow, what a concept.

James R. DiGiovanna (dba Crystal Paradigm)

> No man is smart enough to predict
> how an economy will behave.

Well, there is that strange case where such a man existed and he was able to predict a whopping 200 years of the world's economic cycle! Check this out:

http://pages.infinit.net/cbenoi1/images/cycle.tif

That page was given to me by my father 15 years ago. It is a photocopy of Montreal's main paper 'La Presse' dating 1959 which describes the case of this graph being discovered in an old drawer back in 1902. The sheet of paper was likely to be much older than this (40 years according to the original article).

-cb

CrystalParadigm

IP is getting confused with property like a house or a car or something tangible.

this is detrimental to creativity.

the proposed system rewards the creator. And lifecycle dev costs are much less.

Quote: Original post by CrystalParadigm
Piracy is stealing.
By legalizing piracy, the problem is not solved, it is simply not recognized.
Yes, it's that simple.

James R. DiGiovanna (dba Crystal Paradigm)

the problem is not solved.

what exactly is the problem?

the problem in the majority of balanced peoples view is this: people arnt getting payed for the work that they do.

but if they do get payed a rightful amount - then it is rightful. So the problem is solved contrary to what you hold to.

Why not just switch all software to a subscription service?

Quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Why not just switch all software to a subscription service?

i dont think that works. people will still make copies and they will be distributed and so on and so forth - piracy will still exist.

I talk for example of music - how could you have a subscription to mp3s? when its easy enough to make them whatever encrypted format is used. just record them as a wav file and convert them to mp3.

or whatever.

Quote: Original post by kindfluffysteve
CrystalParadigm

IP is getting confused with property like a house or a car or something tangible.

this is detrimental to creativity.

the proposed system rewards the creator. And lifecycle dev costs are much less.

On the contrary, if developers get paid regardless of whether their works are sold or only pirated, there is no incentive to do better than what already exists. I will acknowledge, however, that fewer risks are taken in the market today. Why do we see the deluge of lame-same FPS games flooding the market these days? Because FPS games sell. There is no incentive this way to do better than what already exists either. This is why economic markets are slowly making a shift from goods -> services.

James R. DiGiovanna (dba Crystal Paradigm)

Btw: Intellectual Property is not confused with tangible property, but it is property nonetheless.