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[Pnx]

As far as I can tell, the only type of media that can be significantly protected in this way is games, where the actual code is relevant and the output is only superficial. With music and video, the output is what the consumer wants, so streaming accomplishes (at best) a degradation of quality.

Games can be copied like any other media.
Consoles provide some degree of protection because the hardware has to be modded before you can pirate games, but even then it costs less than the price of an on release game to mod your console. The only reason more people don't do it seems to be because they don't realize how easy it actually is.

The only way I can tell that games are guaranteed some degree of control is through online play, where people aren't paying for the commodity, they're paying for a service, and services are much easier to sell than a commodity anyone can make a copy of.

[MonkeyHead]

Pretty sure it was Radiohead who did a smart stunt while back for one of thier new albums. You could download it, and pay whatever you wanted. Most people still paid within a few £'s of the actual RRP anyway... and I am sure the gimmic got more people to download it, even if they did only pay pennies.

Now, I dont condone piracy at all. However, I understand why a physical album (CD or other solid state storage) can cost a number of £'s, $'s or suchlike. However, the model where companies try and charge a similar amonut for a digital copy (which surely must have lower costs to make for obvious reasons) IMHO is clearly a contributing factor to why people are looking at alternative ways for obtaining thier media.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Theft has always been a recognized aspect of human behavior, but the internet has provided for it to be simple and nearly undetectable. It is no surprise that piracy occurs on the level that it does, and it probably can't be stopped as long as the internet continues to exist.

The best way to go about things is to have distribution platforms that are like Steam, where the customer's desires and needs are taken into account by the business providing the music/book/game/whatever. Groups such as the RIAA are regressive in their philosophy of stopping piracy, and SOPA is another product of this flawed line of thought.

[GlyphGryph]

Theft has always been a recognized aspect of human behavior, but the internet has provided for it to be simple and nearly undetectable.

And, I should emphasize, piracy is not theft and has jack-all to do with it.

I really hate that conflation.

It's like saying that using the yogurt I bought from the store to culture my own batch is theft. It is completely asinine.

It is illegal, yes (under certain conditions), but at no point am I depriving another person of their property.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Theft has always been a recognized aspect of human behavior, but the internet has provided for it to be simple and nearly undetectable.

And, I should emphasize, piracy is not theft and has jack-all to do with it.

I really hate that conflation.

Piracy is completely theft and is directly related to how anonymity, ease, and peer-pressure are known to loosen an individual's moral standards on things like theft.

[Willfor]

Theft has always been a recognized aspect of human behavior, but the internet has provided for it to be simple and nearly undetectable.

And, I should emphasize, piracy is not theft and has jack-all to do with it.

I really hate that conflation.

I think it would be best if that derail was taken to a completely different topic, as I have seen these ones several times, and I know what happens.

[Fenrir]

At least you have the right to access those services, provided by your society, which is why you have taxes to pay.

This still leaves me paying for them. Manditory payments, I might add, or it shall be a bright orange jumpsuit for my sorry hindquarters.

You may not feel you have a debt or obligation to it, but it is there, making sure that you arent enslaved or eaten by bears.

Wasn’t that feeling of debt or obligation the whole topic? Because, I did notice the conspicuous lack of bears.

You seem to think that you haven't benefited from being part of a society whatsoever except for what your parents have done for you.

I never said that I never benefitted. I said that I do not owe them anything. I benefit from the grocery store down the street, but, so soon as I pay in full, I consider my debts cleared. The store also benefits from me in this exchange.

I suppose, then, that you've never made any personal relationships or benefited from any social or economic infrastructure whatsoever in a way that you did not directly pay for yourself. Tell me, did you and your parents live in the woods or something? If you really can't see why the human society around you, and the fruits of its labors (over the course of millennia, no less) have benefited you in any way, I have no idea what to say to you. That is just such a ridiculous concept that I don't know how to describe how ridiculous it is.

I have formed personal relationships, but, unless I am the only person alive who’s friendship is not worth anything, those are mutually beneficial too.

Even the very ideas and culture you've internalized into your brain contain a lot that your parents don't even know, much less have invented out of whole cloth themselves.

That is a good point. It does not kindle in me some obligation or whatever, but I have had ocassion to absorb a rather interesting fact or two million, but, unless I got those facts by some means for which I did not pay — I need to think about that.

Does that mean I can sue society for the memes? Because they’re OVER 9000!

[MonkeyHead]

Consider the prospect of being sent to prison a punishment for not fulfiling the debt you have built up to society. Surley without said society you must see that without it, your life would be totally unrecognisable. Therefore, if you realise it or not, you owe at the very least a debt of gratitude for any freedoms you have.

[GlyphGryph]

Piracy is completely theft

Yes, well, that is definitely a thing that you said, there.

And rocks are trees, mostly because they are very green. And shooting someone is arson, because bullets are easy to come by in America. And hitting someone with a car is embezzlement, because it costs lots of money to buy a new hip.

Wow, this is really easy, I could just say things all day. But yeah, this should probably have it's own thread.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Piracy is completely theft

Yes, well, that is definitely a thing that you said, there.

And rocks are trees, mostly because they are very green. And shooting someone is arson, because bullets are easy to come by in America. And hitting someone with a car is embezzlement, because it costs lots of money to buy a new hip.

You're seriously just going to take a tiny fragment of my post and go off on a sarcastic tangent?

Wow, this is really easy, I could just say things all day. But yeah, this should probably have it's own thread.

No objections here.

[Pnx]

Theft has always been a recognized aspect of human behavior, but the internet has provided for it to be simple and nearly undetectable.

And, I should emphasize, piracy is not theft and has jack-all to do with it.

I really hate that conflation.

Piracy is completely theft and is directly related to how anonymity, ease, and peer-pressure are known to loosen an individual's moral standards on things like theft.

Ok, I know should drop this but.... Here's some definitions of theft.

In criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent

a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it

b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property

Piracy does not actually deprive anyone of a copy, it just makes a copy, thus it is copyright infringement. That is to say, making a copy without permission. Rather than theft, which is taking away someone else's copy.

This is the issue here.

[Fenrir]

Consider the prospect of being sent to prison a punishment for not fulfiling the debt you have to society.

Consider the fact that I am not in prison a sign that I have been fulfiling the debt to those service providers.

Which then forces me to conclude that I do have debts, I just happen to be paying them. Is that what was meant? I had taken all this to imply that I had some further obligation beyond my taxes.

[GlyphGryph]

You're seriously just going to take a tiny fragment of my post and go off on a sarcastic tangent?

It was the only part of what you said that was relevant to my argument, and the only part I had a problem with?

Anyways, I'm splitting this off now.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Ok, I know should drop this but.... Here's some definitions of theft.

In criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent

And it does take their property, but it's intellectual property instead of physical property. Although you could see it as physical property depending on how you view electronic data.

[GlyphGryph]

Other thread.