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[SalmonGod]

Surely there are ways to adapt to the new climate though.  Like focusing on things that can't be pirated (cinema, live performances, online content, merchandise, whatever) or giving your users more of a reason to not want to pirate your stuff.  I dunno, I just don't think smashing the threshing machines is gonna work very well for anyone in the long run.

You mean like how artists in the music industry have always operated?  It's a great example of how harmful IP law really is.  It doesn't protect the rights of artists.  It empowers capitalist vultures to feed off of artists like parasites.

Traditionally, musicians pay major record labels for contracts to produce albums.  The label has access to production, distribution, and marketing tools that the musician does not.  Therefore, they are providing a service that the musician pays for, and that makes sense, right?... but then, they also own the rights to the end product, treat the musicians as employees who are contractually obligated to produce a certain amount of content for the label, and take almost all of the profit for themselves.  The vast majority of musicians signed up with major record labels never see a profit from album sales.  They made most of their money on live performances and merchandise.  And until the last ten years or so, there wasn't a damn thing those musicians could do about it.  Those corporate labels had a monopoly on the resources that they needed to produce commercial music.  They had no choice but to agree to their terms.  Now the tools for quality production are fairly cheap, and the internet makes it possible for anyone to market and distribute their work individually.

As a matter of principle, the same thing is happening in every other form of media as well.  Film and games are somewhat special, given many of the skills and tools involved in high quality production are still very expensive for those types of media.  Still, it's happening even there, just at a slower pace.

What we're seeing right now is the traditional media industry's violent bids to retain their power.  They want to stifle the growth of amateur content.  They want artists to remain dependent on them, and protect executive ownership of both the process of creation and the end result.

All this talk of how the issue effects jobs only goes to show how fucking absurd our economic systems are, and how damaging to the nature of our culture.

Personally, I refuse to buy music on principle alone, unless it's directly from an independent group.  I very rarely pirate movies or games.  Even when I do, it's because I either can't get access to them easily any other way, or can't afford the up-front investment at that time to see if the work is something I'd actually like.  However, I'm on the verge of boycotting the film industry, because the internet is very dear to me.  Almost everything happy in my life has come from the internet in one way or another.  The film and music industries are very much threatening to destroy that.

[Willfor]

Traditionally, musicians pay major record labels for contracts to produce albums.  The label has access to production, distribution, and marketing tools that the musician does not.  Therefore, they are providing a service that the musician pays for, and that makes sense, right?... but then, they also own the rights to the end product, treat the musicians as employees who are contractually obligated to produce a certain amount of content for the label, and take almost all of the profit for themselves.  The vast majority of musicians signed up with major record labels never see a profit from album sales.  They made most of their money on live performances and merchandise.  And until the last ten years or so, there wasn't a damn thing those musicians could do about it.  Those corporate labels had a monopoly on the resources that they needed to produce commercial music.  They had no choice but to agree to their terms.  Now the tools for quality production are fairly cheap, and the internet makes it possible for anyone to market and distribute their work individually.

It's not even that. A lot of the people who did the technical work for major labels have now gone freelance because that's where the money is going. Yes, there is still a music "industry", but the mechanical aspects of it have already been moving on. Producers; mixing engineers; recording engineers; these people have all been moving toward a business model where they take their money right from artist, or a small label. It's not as consistent a paycheque to be sure, but this aspect of the music business has always been a meritocracy. The people who actually know how to make a high quality musical production (it's far more complicated than simply owning the right equipment) have always been paid in a flat fee for their job (though producers earn royalties ... and have often had better royalty deals than the artists they produce for) and they've not really had to adapt very hard if they were already doing their job right. The amount of people needed to make an album as good as anything coming out of the big music distributors is far smaller than the amount of people needed to put out something with the same production values as Hollywood can for movies.

The ability for the corporate music industry to control the business died when *"quality" music didn't have to be distributed in the form of expensive-to-set-up-manufacturing-for vinyl records. Everything past that point has simply been the death throes of it.

*Unfortunately, vinyl is still quantitatively better than digital formats in terms of sound quality. Though there are many engineers working on making sure this doesn't remain the same going into the future.

[Muz]

Personally, I think Hollywood, music companies, sports companies... entertainment in general makes too much money. They're not really contributing directly to the economy. Arguably, they're making the world counter-productive. I don't believe that they should be living in mansions, though for all their work, I don't believe they should be homeless either. I think guys like Toady One hit the mark on where an artist should be, just making enough to not have to do other things, being able to live comfortably, but not sitting in a mansion with his own private bowling alley.

The most common school of thought is that a job paying well will encourage the most competent. Not true. Ultra high paying jobs pull in scum and gold diggers. Mercenaries who do it for money and leave doing the bare minimum it takes to be highly paid. The guys who will kill and backstab anyone, including the artists and artisans who are bringing them money in the first place.

But having them too poor would discourage them... I mean, heck, when an actress can't make a living off acting, she goes into HR. When a programmer can't make a living off games, he does database stuff. And yet, they will think of living the dream, not quite being productive in society.

As a consumer, my best interest is that they sit somewhere around the middle ground, making just enough to keep making more games, movies, tv series, etc without making too much money that they get lazy and stupid and becoming Atari and Sony.

Worse still, the entertainment industry goes to hell with the free market. Making a bit of entertainment - a song, movie, game, book, whatever takes years of effort and creative work. Actually printing it costs less than cents. You don't have a solid expensive thing to sell, therefore, pirates can easily undercut your prices. This is why you need copyright. Trying to destroy copyright is stupid, they can't make a profit and won't work at all.


I support a little piracy, as it keeps corporations from going wild and setting games to whatever the hell price they want. $50 is already far too much for a game, IMO, but some people pay it, so eh. But I definitely support copyright as no entertainment industry could exist without it.

In regards to the whole thing, I'm happy seeing them both fight it out. It produces better entertainment.

[Phmcw]

The fbi gang took down Megaupload in order to serves his bosses interests. You'll notice that Megaupload was an highly successful corporation that racked loads of cash, and could have been subject to any taxes or flat fees for using/distributing copyrighted content.
But apparently they didn't paid the MAAFIA for protection.

[Powder Miner]

*facepalm* The government doesn't work by taxing people using copyrighted material. They were even paying people who brought in copyrighted, popular content, and they profited from it because the site costs money to join. There's no paying for protection. They even took them down for money laundering.

[Phmcw]

*facepalm* The government doesn't work by taxing people using copyrighted material. They were even paying people who brought in copyrighted, popular content, and they profited from it because the site costs money to join. There's no paying for protection. They even took them down for money laundering.

Yes, there is paying for protection to the MPAA, to avoid being raided by American forces, as opposed to paying a society for a service, such as promotion and distribution. What does the MPAA do for megaupload? Why should they pay?
And yes, they thrown in a few other bullshit charges as usual, just like they took down Assange for "rape".

As for the tax, that would be a viable system, like tv redevance, or copyright really. make them pay per gigabyte and you'll be fine. Of course the SABAM in belgium fight this proposition with all they have because a) the current system allow them to sell idiots a cd for 20€ b) the artists hates the Sabam and this would be the first steps to do without them.

[Bohandas]

BTW, I've added a couple of sentences to the manifesto based on criticism that it has received on other forums. I've added a sentence voicing support for local artists, independent filmmakers, and minor labels, as well as another sentence to the effect that if you do not wish to cut off all support for mainstream media, you should instead limit your patronage to films and bands where at least one of the people involved has publicly expressed opposition to SOPA and PIPA.

[jester]

BTW, I've added a couple of sentences to the manifesto based on criticism that it has received on other forums. I've added a sentence voicing support for local artists, independent filmmakers, and minor labels, as well as another sentence to the effect that if you do not wish to cut off all support for mainstream media, you should instead limit your patronage to films and bands where at least one of the people involved has publicly expressed opposition to SOPA and PIPA.

  Does just pinching stuff of the major record/film companies on a regular basis count?

[Bohandas]

BTW, I've added a couple of sentences to the manifesto based on criticism that it has received on other forums. I've added a sentence voicing support for local artists, independent filmmakers, and minor labels, as well as another sentence to the effect that if you do not wish to cut off all support for mainstream media, you should instead limit your patronage to films and bands where at least one of the people involved has publicly expressed opposition to SOPA and PIPA.

  Does just pinching stuff of the major record/film companies on a regular basis count?

Yes.

[Zangi]

"Hollywood Must Be Destroyed"

Sounds very unreasonable.  Just let them die on their own if they can't change themselves. 
Though, I suppose they are doing their durndest to change everything else to their favor force everyone else to adhere to their archaic business model.

[Bohandas]

Though, I suppose they are doing their durndest to force everyone else to adhere to their archaic business model.

Right, and because of this they are a threat that needs to be dealt with.

[Bohandas]

Sometimes to make an omelet you need to crack some eggs, Tilla.

No. Not when these eggs are good peoples livelihoods you don't. Criptfiend is correct: what omelet are you making again? The omelet of having no entertainment and losing thousands of jobs?

This kind of legislation is gonna fuck over a lot more people than that if it passes. Its going to damage a lot of legitimate online businesses. Don't their livelihoods count for anything.

[Criptfeind]

Um. Wow. How is that relevant?

[jester]

Sometimes to make an omelet you need to crack some eggs, Tilla.

No. Not when these eggs are good peoples livelihoods you don't. Criptfiend is correct: what omelet are you making again? The omelet of having no entertainment and losing thousands of jobs?

This kind of legislation is gonna fuck over a lot more people than that if it passes. Its going to damage a lot of legitimate online businesses. Don't their livelihoods count for anything.

Not until they start dumping large quantities of cash on the right pollies they dont.  I get the feeling that the SOPA thing would be totally dead now if rather than petitions people had passed the hat round then used the cash to buy some lobbying

[MAurelius]

Not until they start dumping large quantities of cash on the right pollies they dont.  I get the feeling that the SOPA thing would be totally dead now if rather than petitions people had passed the hat round then used the cash to buy some lobbying

This is true. I have felt the same way about video game consumers boycotting publishers (I'm talking to you, Ubisoft) with ridiculous DRM. However, the overall gaming public have proven themselves too weak to deny themselves games to create a better future. It's one thing to piss and moan, and a whole 'nother thing to say "despite how cool your game looks, I won't be buying it until you respect me as a customer." Diablo III won't allow a person to play single player offline. Many people are upset by this. Diablo III is still going to sell a bajillion copies, and Blizzard will think "see, the public LOVES our 'always online' DRM and wants MORE of it". I would LOVE to play Diablo III but I'm not gonna buy it. I'm certainly not gonna pirate it. At some point, you just have to be mad as hell and not taking it any more.