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[Loud Whispers]

I dont think many people here want people to be thrown in jail in this circumstance. This is just a strawman.

I don't think you know what the copyright laws are.

But how does that statement suggest that I dont know what copyright laws are?

Spoiler: American copyright law (click to show/hide)

Infringer pays the actual dollar amount of damages and profits.
The law provides a range from $200 to $150,000 for each work infringed.
Infringer pays for all attorneys fees and court costs.
The Court can issue an injunction to stop the infringing acts.
The Court can impound the illegal works.
The infringer can go to jail.

British copyright law the infringer can face an unlimited fine and 10 years in prison.
'To protect creativity.'
And talk to a music publisher and look like you have money.
There are a bad number of people like that.

[alexandertnt]

I dont think many people here want people to be thrown in jail in this circumstance. This is just a strawman.

I don't think you know what the copyright laws are.

But how does that statement suggest that I dont know what copyright laws are?

Spoiler: American copyright law (click to show/hide)

Infringer pays the actual dollar amount of damages and profits.
The law provides a range from $200 to $150,000 for each work infringed.
Infringer pays for all attorneys fees and court costs.
The Court can issue an injunction to stop the infringing acts.
The Court can impound the illegal works.
The infringer can go to jail.

British copyright law the infringer can face an unlimited fine and 10 years in prison.
'To protect creativity.'
And talk to a music publisher and look like you have money.
There are a bad number of people like that.

Erm, yes, that is copyright law. And yes, it is overkill. I still dont understand what this has to do with my statement (which was directly related to LordBucket's comment suggesting that people who want copyright also want it heavily enforced). I think I should point out (though I already have) that I am not defending the current copyright laws, only putting arguments against the removal of copyright alltogether.

ie I want copyright and Skyrim, and dont want many of those laws you have just quoted, and wanting one does not require the other.

[Jimmy]

The big issue with copyright today lies in the digital distribution model. You'll note that the major targets for copyright infringement are music, movies and video games, all of which are simply and easily distributed online as data files.

The copyright industry is to blame for failing to keep pace with the modern consumer. People don't have to go out to a music store to buy their music, they don't have to go to a video store to buy a movie, and they don't have to go to a game store to buy a video game. Some still prefer this option, but for others, they'd rather access it instantly from home via the internet.

The advantage piracy has versus the traditional distribution model is a matter of convenience moreso than price. If price was the only factor in the equation, services such as iTunes, Netflix and Steam would have failed long ago for failing to match the pirate rate of free. Instead we see a clever subset of retailers that understand the shift in consumer behavior and have tapped into the market.

I suggest people give thought to what happens when 3D printing becomes mainstream. For instance, who will pay retail cost for a Lego set when you can download and print your own pieces instead? Will it then become illegal to print Lego? Will you be sent to jail for copying the design of another company, even if it's for personal use?

[Neonivek]

I still dont understand what this has to do with my statement

Sometimes what I and others like to do is add on additional information when we quote someone.

I will admit it is very awkward when the person thinks I am trying to argue or contradict them.

[alexandertnt]

I suggest people give thought to what happens when 3D printing becomes mainstream. For instance, who will pay retail cost for a Lego set when you can download and print your own pieces instead? Will it then become illegal to print Lego? Will you be sent to jail for copying the design of another company, even if it's for personal use?

You can purchase lego-knockoffs, so I would assume it would be legal to print lego (I could be very wrong so I dont take responsibility if you get sent to jail ).

But yeah, 3D printing certainly shakes things up a bit. I would like to think that personal use 3D printing would be mostly unobstructed (but I somehow dont think this will happen). If I were to guess, I would think the resulting laws would be similar to what happens with the 2D reproduction of images (I am not necessarily saying this is good or bad).

Hmm, it could move the production of simple 3D objects (like toys etc) out of factories and into the homes. Maby in the future you will be aquiring (through purchase, or some sort of free-software equivilent for models) digital copies of 3D things instead of going to the shop, much like the change from purchasing cartriges to digital distribution. Personally (as a hobbyist 3D-modeller) I mainly hope the 3D printers themselves are not restricted, as printing off my own 3D models would be awesome.

The advantage piracy has versus the traditional distribution model is a matter of convenience moreso than price. If price was the only factor in the equation, services such as iTunes, Netflix and Steam would have failed long ago for failing to match the pirate rate of free. Instead we see a clever subset of retailers that understand the shift in consumer behavior and have tapped into the market.

I agree. It seems more people pirate things because it is easier (not because they are cheap bastards), and the current industry has been very slow at providing a legal alternative. I do not like it when people who pirate anything are strawmanned into monsters.

I still dont understand what this has to do with my statement

Sometimes what I and others like to do is add on additional information when we quote someone.

I will admit it is very awkward when the person thinks I am trying to argue or contradict them.

Well yeah, but his/her original statement was "I don't think you know what the copyright laws are.", yet (s)he has not demonstrated at all how I have misrepresented or shown a misunderstanding of copyright laws. That is not additional information about anything in particular and I still can't work out what my statement had to do with copyright laws, which I simply did not comment on.

I am also baffled by the response, which is just a list of potential outcomes of copyright infringement (which I dont believe I ever contradicted, and I certainly do not condone).

I am all ears if you have found a problem with my arguments, I want to correct or take back any faulty arguments I have made. But to do that I first need that faulty argument to be identified. A statement like "You dont understand copyright law" is not a particularly informative response to a quote that has nothing to do with copyright law. Hell, its not even particularly useful on its own as a response to a hypothetical post that is related to copyright law. What do I not understand about copyright law?

The fact that I feel like this makes me cautious that I have missed something, and if I have I apologise. I dont intend to convery any malice. But I cannot see what I have missed...

[Neonivek]

Well yeah, but his/her original statement was "I don't think you know what the copyright laws are.",

Yeah but reading it over I still have no idea what they mean. It only makes sense the way I presented it.

[Loud Whispers]

You can purchase lego-knockoffs, so I would assume it would be legal to print lego (I could be very wrong so I dont take responsibility if you get sent to jail ).

Well there was actually a legal case between Lego and Megablocks surrounding logos one time. Apparently it was ruled that you can't copyright simple polygons, sanity was to be had.

But yeah, 3D printing certainly shakes things up a bit. I would like to think that personal use 3D printing would be mostly unobstructed (but I somehow dont think this will happen). If I were to guess, I would think the resulting laws would be similar to what happens with the 2D reproduction of images (I am not necessarily saying this is good or bad).
Hmm, it could move the production of simple 3D objects (like toys etc) out of factories and into the homes.

GW tried suing a man for 3D printing in their 'style.' He pulled down his designs to avoid having to go to court.

I agree. It seems more people pirate things because it is easier (not because they are cheap bastards), and the current industry has been very slow at providing a legal alternative. I do not like it when people who pirate anything are strawmanned into monsters.

You kidding me? Just look at how sexy they make piracy seem.

Well yeah, but his/her original statement was "I don't think you know what the copyright laws are.", yet (s)he has not demonstrated at all how I have misrepresented or shown a misunderstanding of copyright laws.

"I dont think many people here want people to be thrown in jail in this circumstance. This is just a strawman."
Despite the proponents of the current copyright law advocating just that.

I am also baffled by the response, which is just a list of potential outcomes of copyright infringement (which I dont believe I ever contradicted, and I certainly do not condone).

Are we even talking about the same thing here? Because I'd think copyright law is what we'd be talking about in the piracy thread.

"You dont understand copyright law" is not a particularly informative response to a quote that has nothing to do with copyright law. Hell, its not even particularly useful on its own as a response to a hypothetical post that is related to copyright law. What do I not understand about copyright law?

"I don't think you know what the copyright laws are" was to get you thinking about the consequences of it, and who decided those consequences. Of them, prison is possible. There were people, who looked at piracy, and they drafted this law meaning to put people in prison for it. But of course, everything on the internet is an affront to your existence, continue bickering.

[NobodyPro]

But yeah, 3D printing certainly shakes things up a bit. I would like to think that personal use 3D printing would be mostly unobstructed (but I somehow dont think this will happen). If I were to guess, I would think the resulting laws would be similar to what happens with the 2D reproduction of images (I am not necessarily saying this is good or bad).
Hmm, it could move the production of simple 3D objects (like toys etc) out of factories and into the homes.

GW tried suing a man for 3D printing in their 'style.' He pulled down his designs to avoid having to go to court.

GW do a lot of crazy legal things. I think I remember them recently going to court with another tabletop games company claiming, amongst other things, that the other company wasn't allowed to have their trademark huge pauldrons or giant lizard people.

I just tallied up all the things I actually 'paid off' since I got a credit card. Excuse me while I google pictures of kittens so I can forget. Software licenses are expensive

[Leafsnail]

If you advocate for a current law I don't think it's unreasonable to assume you're advocating for that law as it exists now and not a watered down version of that law.

It's almost like I didn't cite where I read it in the post you're replying to. If you can be arsed to google, you'll find the cited presentation cited their graph from EEDAR, which is a research and consultant company that was tracking sales of, get this: Xbox games. Console. Now we can assume consoles are relatively secure from most piracy compared to PC, at least effectively immune. Immune enough for the whole "devs flocking to console because we don't want our games pirated" anyway.

So taking this as the best example of sales, with piracy not affecting or skewing results, we can argue for something hilarious given how insane a near ~50% drop in sales correlated with having a demo is:
Something as simple as having a demo is more damaging to sales than piracy.

I found the source, and it doesn't say its methodology at all anywhere.  That makes the data pretty invalid, because correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation in one direction.  As I said before, there's a chance that the highest selling games (and these would sell high enough to dramatically skew the average) know that they do not need to produce a demo in order to get customers.  Or that the entire average is skewed by a few extremely high selling games that happen to not have demos (this is like how a poor neighbourhood can suddenly look rich if one billionaire moves in).

[Leafsnail]

Incidentally, who actually coined the term "piracy" in a digital context?  I'd have thought if you wanted to make them look bad you wouldn't pick the most glorified and romanticized crime out there.

[alexandertnt]

Spoiler: Spoilered to avoid "bickering" (click to show/hide)

snip

I do not believe you communicated what you were trying to communicate to me very clearly at all. I further believe you have mistaken references to "copyright", the legal concept ("giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it"), with "copyright law" the current laws used to enforce that concept (remember that LordBucket, as far as I am aware, is arguing against the very concept of copyright itself, not just the current laws used to enforce them). I now believe I understand what you are trying to communicate and I agree with you for the most part. The current copyright laws suck and going to jail sucks for a petty crime.

I see copyright as good. I see current copyright law as bad. Did I ever demonstrate a lack of understanding of copyright laws, or imply that I support these laws anywhere at all, particularly in what you quoted?

But of course, everything on the internet is an affront to your existence, continue bickering.

But of course! How could I be so foolish. I really am that shallow, sometimes I just forget . Its not at all conceivable that you have communicated your point unclearly and instead its all just your mere digital existance offending me. Actually, everything on the internet offends me for some reason.

I have only one response to this (well, appart from the obvious). Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Incidentally, who actually coined the term "piracy" in a digital context?  I'd have thought if you wanted to make them look bad you wouldn't pick the most glorified and romanticized crime out there.

Apparently (according to wikipedia) the term was coined centuries ago when piracy was probably not particularly romantacized when referring to copyright infringement. I would assume that lawyers/whoever diddnt see the difference when digital copyright came along. Little did they know how awesome they would make it sound.

[Bauglir]

There should be no confusion. There is no strawman here, there is no misrepresentation of the opposing position. The only confusion here is in that you think the declaration of your opinion or identity is important. Unless you are copyright laws incarnate, it isn't. Stop defending yourself when no one is attacking you.

Why did you quote my post and use the scenario I was discussing as the basis for a caricature, if what you are trying to say had nothing to do with what I said? And if it did have something to do with what I said, why should I not respond?

Spoiler: This Discussion Is Stupid (click to show/hide)

So this person lives in a society where everyone is out for themselves, yet has shared the fire nonetheless for the betterment of society. Ignoring the anomaly that is selfless people...

Do you find it hard to believe that there are people who will take advantage of a person who does nice things?

You are not defending the right to distribute your fire. You are defending the right to ensure no one else learns how to make their own fires.

And then what of the people who are capable of gathering and discovering fire? Well, the latter is ruled out certainly. Hell, if you applied the state of modern copyright law to this analogy you wouldn't even be able to use fire if some selfish arsehat discovered how to make it first. Which sadly, is the case in the medical 'industry.'

Yes, because ensuring nobody else makes fires without compensating you for your original invention is the only way to ensure you'll be compensated for your original invention whenever somebody makes a fire. This is actually where the difference between patent law and copyright law is important*, because "how to make fire" is a piece of knowledge that should be handled differently from "the likeness of Luke Skywalker", due to the vast differences in the good they provide to society and the ways in which they are created. Your issue with the medical industry, for instance, is one of patent law allowing people to own patents on things that are absurd, and has nothing to do with copyrights, whose biggest problem is that they're enforced in stupid ways and exist for bizarrely long periods of time.

*For instance, trade secrets are a thing, and one I don't really approve of outside pure luxury goods. Filing a patent does encourage creativity by making your methods publicly available, in exchange for giving you exclusivity over their use for a period of time (which, as currently stands in the law, is probably too long a time, but again that's a problem with execution, not with principle). At any rate, the problem of other people who could have developed something is one largely reserved for patents, not copyrights (where, to my knowledge, proof that you independently came up with an idea is a valid defense).

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There should be no confusion. There is no strawman here, there is no misrepresentation of the opposing position. The only confusion here is in that you think the declaration of your opinion or identity is important. Unless you are copyright laws incarnate, it isn't. Stop defending yourself when no one is attacking you.

Why did you quote my post and use the scenario I was discussing as the basis for a caricature, if what you are trying to say had nothing to do with what I said? And if it did have something to do with what I said, why should I not respond?

1. Because I was talking about copyright law. Which coincidentally, had something to do with what you said.
2. Responding is one thing, being defensive is another. You are needlessly pouring paragraphs into ensuring you are not blamed for accusations not made.
Somewhat similar to Alexander's case. I quote one thing, make a rhetorical statement, queue endless paragraphs of 'but I know so much about copyright law how could you say such a thing.' Yes, thank you for your wonderful contribution. You say "Did I ever demonstrate a lack of understanding of copyright laws" I quote  "I dont think many people here want people to be thrown in jail in this circumstance. This is just a strawman" and you make more paragraphs that don't matter at all, asking the same question in ever increasing length. Because you have this fetishistic obsession with making sure that your opinion is known above the discussion at hand.

Do you find it hard to believe that there are people who will take advantage of a person who does nice things?

I was actually being cynical. The heavy-capitalists of this world use everything to exploit the system. Copyright is used to exploit the system that it is supposed to be working against, for a limited time. I don't see how you think Copyright would stop anyone out for money from simply taking Grod's fire and making it a different colour, or how it would 'definitely' secure Grod a source of income.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You are not defending the right to distribute your fire. You are defending the right to ensure no one else learns how to make their own fires.

And then what of the people who are capable of gathering and discovering fire? Well, the latter is ruled out certainly. Hell, if you applied the state of modern copyright law to this analogy you wouldn't even be able to use fire if some selfish arsehat discovered how to make it first. Which sadly, is the case in the medical 'industry.'

Yes, because ensuring nobody else makes fires without compensating you for your original invention is the only way to ensure you'll be compensated for your original invention whenever somebody makes a fire. This is actually where the difference between patent law and copyright law is important*, because "how to make fire" is a piece of knowledge that should be handled differently from "the likeness of Luke Skywalker", due to the vast differences in the good they provide to society and the ways in which they are created. Your issue with the medical industry, for instance, is one of patent law allowing people to own patents on things that are absurd, and has nothing to do with copyrights, whose biggest problem is that they're enforced in stupid ways and exist for bizarrely long periods of time.

I think I stressed enough the emphasis on the knowledge to make fire being information. The absurd patenting is the same problem with copyright. One is directly harmful to research, the other to media. A problem for copyright is that is also used absurdly and violently to squeeze more money out of consumers, and I'm not even talking about stopping pirates to try boost sales, I mean targeting paying customers. Meanwhile it does nothing to stop anyone, publisher or individual from simply making their own.

[Bauglir]

I'm pouring paragraphs into explaining what I said. The short version: Copyright is, in principle, good, but the current implementation is bizarre and heavily abused. Do you disagree with this? If so, everything I've said is relevant. If not, then I suppose it's been a misunderstanding, and I apologize for assuming you were attempting to make counterarguments against my claims. In either case, I'm done with the fire example - the differences between patents and copyrights aren't purely semantic.

[Loud Whispers]

I'm pouring paragraphs into explaining what I said. The short version: Copyright is, in principle, good, but the current implementation is bizarre and heavily abused. Do you disagree with this?

Nope. Also the emphasis on commercialism and not culture is another face on the cube of issues.