It’s a sad sad world when you serve more time and financial damages for downloading “copyrighted” material, than for robbing a physical store with a weapon.

Copyright law was made to protect TWO parties, the creator and the user. Now the user gets bent over and fucked while the creator (usually a multinational) gets uber rich.

People should make money on their creations, but we need fair digital copyright laws.

The RIAA/MPAA use the US government to enforce its wants and wills because a lot of the government money comes from the taxes (sales tax, etc) that are on all these products. Without those billions they make from those sales they can’t do what they want. So they use their influence on the world economy and political organizations to get their will done even thou its the RIAA/MPAA pulling the strings.

The world runs on the almighty dollar people, understand and live with this.

Viva Los Pirates!!

But has Britney Spears EVER made an album worth $18?

The recording industry doesn’t promote talent. It’s merely panders to the lowest common denominator.

As I said, they don’t care about the artist, or the art, or the consumer. It’s all about hegemony.

It’s like they say- “Don’t steal, the government hates competition.”

ROTFLMFAO[/quote]

I’m glad you have money to buy all that original crap. Well, I can’t afford to do that, because I live in a poor country. Piracy is the only chance for me and many MORE people who live in poor countries.

ROTFLMFAO

ROTFLMFAO

The record industry is broken? Why, cuz you got away with stealing for a little while? Real funny.

And I can just see you douchebags trying to lobby Congress on your behalf; “Hello, I steal music, will you please stand up for my rights?”

ROTFLMFAO.

The cost of high-capacity data storage here in the States is falling.

I bought a 320 GB drive for 75 USD recently. Blank DVDs are about 15-25 cents apiece retail.

Why are the tools that facilitate easy music/movie/software piracy getting cheaper if piracy is such a problem in the US?

Wouldn’t it make sense to tax the people who buy the tools to make up for the lost income to the RIAA/MPAA/Microsoft, etc.?

I’ll happily start paying for content again once a few things happen-

1. When the RIAA/MPAA stops using the government’s agents (i.e. law enforcement) to be its bullies-by-proxy. ESPECIALLY in other countries.

2. When the RIAA/MPAA breaks down how the retail cost of a CD gets distributed among the artist, manufacturer, label, etc. Think of it as a list of ingredients.

3. When Hollywood and the recording industry start looking at p2p and torrents as a new type of media.

After all, if us pirates are able to reproduce EXACT digital copies and distribute them for free, then why can’t they do so at a profit? ITMS is a good example of this at work. It would help the enviroment and possibly lower their overhead considerably to boot.

Until then, I think it’s my moral obligation to keep piracy alive, since there’s no other way to ethically spread the word about creative works I appreciate.

BTW, I don’t neccessarily consider depriving the recording industry or Hollywood money a moral obstacle. Just ask the RIAA/MPAA how they treat the interests vis a vis the majority of their artists.

what? could someone explain this? are they gonna put a judge enforcing THEIR laws in ANOTHER country? who the f*ck would comply with that?

@12 I highly doubt that a judge would overstep his jurisdiction by hearing a case that is not protected under US law. Furthermore, I trust the government agents at the FBI and DOJ to be smart enough not to waste their time over anything that is not copyrighted under US law.

“Surely, if the movies being shared on a tracker do not include those protected by US copyright law, the US government would not be taking action against them.”

Apparently you don’t know us very well, because we tend not to give a fuck whether it’s our business or not. If the RIAA or MPAA doesn’t like something, they’ll get the government to use that act and force them to pursue those outside of the U.S.

BTW: About Leahy, he was paid over 1 million dollars by the RIAA and MPAA.

Fucking fuckers.