Solution: Don’t vote for either.

(That is, of course, assuming you’re American)

I cannot deprive you of a piece of information you created.

Copyright, in fact, is an attempt to do just that: depriving people of the right to do what they want with information they have acquired. Copyright has much more in common with theft than does piracy.

I wonder how they define this. What would be legal sharing???

Things arent as clear cut as they used to be in the day of the 9800 baud modems , where bbs boards were mostly local and things were shared at way, the internet has become to huge to oversee and control, or when you wanted to share your copy of windows 3.11 you went to your friends house with a ton of floppy disks.

Companies are global money comes from everywhere and not only that but you have companies that follow a business model that makes little to no sense at all.

Sony
produces music and movies
produces blank media
produces the devices to copy
produces televisions

now you corner a whole market. provide everything and then complain when people are doing exactly what you wanted from the start.

everyone here has made some great points in regards to what theft is and ideas how to stop it. reality is as long as someone has it someone else wants it. I would place 100 dollars to bet that even if you didnt have to buy something all you needed to do was sign your name, there are those who would still steal it.

not to sound or make humanity sound horrid but we are all selfish and greedy people , we covet and desire anything that we dont have or cant get on our own.

maybe I went a tad off topic but in the end no matter what laws, rules or compromises are made greed will still run all business ideas and decisions and greed will still keep all kinds of theft going.

imo people dont want to pay for inferior goods nor an inferior service. how many times are you going to watch the same movies, gone in 60 seconds!! same movie or buy starwars over and over again. Hell I have 6 copies all slightly differnt. music is especially horrid point, lets all buy that new band that sounds like that other band or heck stick with your favorite band and but the best of hits, greatest hits, and the archival compilation of them. The big 4 wonder why no one want to purchase music well maybe come up with some original music not the same old cookie cutter crap.

I download movies because of the cost of the theatre 9 bucks a pop, plus candy and snacks, you also have to deal with the people who talk phones, nasty spill food all over and the crowds, or I can sit at home, watch the same movie from my livingroom, off my 62in plasma, being able to hit pause, or go do whatever I want,

I download music why because I dont listen to the radio, same song every 20 min, and every station sounds the same, or doesnt even play the type of music I like. I dont buy it at stores because half the time I have to special order it, or I have to deal with people who dont even understand what you want.

I dont watch tv because of all the commercials one has to sift through. Pay 80 bucks a month for like 500 channels and find nothing to watch.

I can only assume there are others who feel the same way as I do, all these corporate entities are the ones who imo forced me to go my route and find alternatives that suit my needs and desires. After all I am human and well I live in the now generation , everything my way right away when I want.

maybe i should set up such an rating institution (?)

The greed monsters can lower the prices.

DVD = 8 bucks
CD = 5 bucks
iTunes song = 5 cents
Games = 10 bucks

Do this and file sharring will be gone. And you will make a bunch of money.

What’s that? Not enough money? Arg…..swab the deck!

I’d like to know what exactly are we taking and carrying away.
All I see are copies being made.

In the previous reply, I thought you said that for freeware. Sorry anyways…

Thanks for commenting. If as you say it is legal, then clear this up for me:

1)I have read some freeware licenses which state that the free software in question must not be sold and charging for them is illegal.

2)But further down, it is written that if there are costs involved in distributing the software to others like burning it on a disk for instance, then you can charge for that. However, you must not charge for the software itself.

From this, I get that you may charge for the costs involved in passing that software to others but not for the software. On wikipedia, Freeware is without involving cost(for the user). If it is sold, it is no longer freeware and it violates the license. Please explain on what basis you have said that selling freeware is legal.

Don’t corrupt politics with excessive copyright durations.

Don’t profiteer from dead artists.

Don’t blame p2p for losses that are really attributed to expenditure shifting to other media such as videogames, etc.

Don’t make out file-sharers are losing you profit when studies show the damage caused is statistically insignificant (and almost indistinguishable from zero percent)

Don’t try to ruin people’s lives over 30 f**king songs to make an example out of them in your misguided attempts to sue (and subsequently alienate) the consumer.

…then come lecture us about stealing!!!

Until then you’ll continue to be considered by the millions of us that do share, nothing.. apart from MAFIAA pricks.

Have a nice day!

You fail. I download and if like I buy. If I don’t download I don’t buy. You, MAFIAA and merry friends don’t seem to get the point so you FAIL. Miserably.

I do hope this failure of an industry, not to mention disgusting for its actions, go down the hill and vanish for good.

Or you could stop being a bunch of imbeciles and start evolving and working with the people you are criminalizing. People that are some of the heaviest consumers of your products.

…

Assholes.

I am a jerk. I know that.

You seem to be neglecting the public domain. Suppose you want to get paid for that too? Why is it that the one’s whining all the time are the ones that make money from other people’s work? We know who the real thieves are.

And I see you still haven’t done your homework.

It is my opinion, one shared by a lot of people online, that the record labels and publishing companies and such are constantly committing acts of evil. They draw their life force- artists, authors, and such- in with promises of fame and glory, and they lock them into contracts that keep them from signing up with anyone else. They take the copyrights to the artists’ works, sell copies of those works, and pay the artists themselves next to nothing. This alone, in light of our modern technology, can be construed as evil, but I’ve only gotten started. When you think of all the other bullshit they push- DRM, blaming any and all drop in sales on filesharing, attacking filesharing despite record profits, that ‘work for hire’ business, lobbying and buying laws, pushing to be able to pull away more and more of our freedoms as a general public… and the kicker: this is all in the interests of their profits. Perfectly fits my definition of evil.

The simplest solution to this problem of festering evil is one that many people on TF recommend: Ignore ‘em. Refusing to buy their movies and music and such is certainly great, but it also helps not to even share them. To share something is to acknowledge that it has value, and the evil tactics practiced by these corporations are enough incentive for me to no longer regard their merchandise as valuable. If people were to stop sharing these things (and I know it won’t happen; I’m just dropping my two cents on here), and if people were to stop buying these things (a bit more likely; cross your fingers), they will die. Oh, they might try to push through absolutely totalitarian laws, more so than they have, while claiming that they’re dying because of p2p, before they die; but they will eventually buy the farm. After that new industries can arise, ones that work with the customers, not against them, and focus on keeping the customers happy, not treating them like criminals.

The existence of such organizations as Creative Commons proves to us that you don’t need draconian copyright in order to write songs and movies and books. Creativity would not die tomorrow if suddenly everyone started to share everything they had. In fact, works that are licensed to be shared are far better to use than works that are not, both because these works promote the spirit of sharing and because you won’t run into any legal troubles while downloading them. I don’t run Windows anymore; I use free software. I don’t download CDs from BitTorrent anymore; I download CC-licensed music. And honestly I’ve not suffered from it.

Again, I’m definitely a p2p supporter. I simply can’t support the commercial organizations that act in this way, and are, without a doubt, evil.

Finally, @MM99:

Speaking of piracy, I saw a guy selling copies the other day. Among those copies(mostly copyrighted), there were:
(…)
-Ubuntu Linux 9.something

It’s legal to sell free software. Not the best business model, but it’s legal.

By the looks of it Germans said enough is enough and are voting Pirate Party all the way LoL

I hope in the U.K. the pirate party flourish too and soon as God knows britons are in dire need of privacy protection.

There’s plenty of new publishers and old artists that have embraced the digital age and are making just as much money as before. If not more, since they are able to cut away about 10 layers of bloat the old media giants pad every sale with.

Lord Mandelson

“taking something for nothing, without permission, and with no compensation for the person who created and owns it, is wrong.”

Well so millions of radio listeners are thieves too not counting millions of TV viewers LoL

We don’t need more trackers we need more Jamendo style sites that only put up liberal licenses so if you want to be heard you will have to give it away.

This is another front on this war, the opensource community already showed the way to do it and make some money along the way.

Don’t buy from those who want to hurt you, pirate if you have to, but change your consume habits to stirr the market in a more healthy direction if you can that is the best way to win because there is nothing absolute nothing they could do short of instating taxes which many can object to.

Actually it does. That’s why it’s called democracy.

here i thought norway was kvlt…
all +1750 artist can go to helvete…

i download and delete so much crap this past year that its saved me thousands of dollars. im very rarely ”entertained” by the crap these so called ”artists” put out. these groups, musicians,movie makers,ect…need to take a long look at what their producing and realize that 90% of it is uninspired,unoriginal,bilge. cry poor, i dont care,youve still make billions of dollars every year regardless of p2p. yet ive been laid off this past winter and cannot afford their prices for entertainment
so if im poor and all my money goes to bills and food then i dont deserve to be entertained…thats only for rich spoiled greedy elitists.
if i still had my job i still wouldnt purchase any thing though.

Please also note that your e-mail and letter will be published in full on
http://www.thepiratebay.org.

Go fuck yourself.

Polite as usual,
anakata

http://static.thepiratebay.org/dreamworks_response.txt

All those who signed the petition can suck on ma big .. BANANA!

LM FUKING MAO . how r we supposed to share when u assh0les sue us for $1M for sharing 1 file.

fuk off. srsly

WT* is that? Old communist and nazis would be proud of your neologism and propaganda, guys. Pathetic…

What does it mean really. That if I but a movie I can share it, upload it, spread it? Or does it mean that I need your approval to share something? Both explanations lack of fundamental logic and ethics.

Share it’s fair. No matter if it’s ‘legal’ or not. Because sharing is caring.

Aye matey!!!

A big part of the problem is in how you define sharing.

This is nothing short of bullshit. There trying to get the government to side with *THEIR* Definition of piracy. Which in there case is sharing files with other members of the planet earth. Yes and as 96 said they want us to stop yet we have they give us the means too be able to share files. You would think they would try to get in on the action with the companies that make the new technology that gives us the ability. OOOHHH wait they do so all around they trying to with us from both sides. In the Word of #1 on this page *Fuck’em They can Stop Us*

Go to a book store, thats the result of the printing press.