h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

just saw some folks chatting about how to get some creative property without paying for it...
some folks rationalize this as okay because everyone knows 'they' are ripping us off anyway... or because this one time won't hurt... or because they make so much this won't hurt them... or because everything should be free anyway

and i think its just sloppy thinking and selfish rationalizing
the people who acted in that tv show deserve to be paid for their work
the folks who wrote those songs
the person who took that picture

Taking is not the same as receiving.

Do the people who appear in Big Brother deserve to be paid?

Does Rebecca Black deserve to be paid for 'Friday', a song written exclusively for Youtube?

Do the takers of voyeuristic pornographic photos deserve to be paid?

I think they're weak arguments against piracy.

There are valid ones, but they're mostly about breaking copyright law, which has much the same status as the House Of Lords - it has such ridiculously long entitlements that it's impossible to get rid of, even if everyone wanted to.

We make our creativity freely available on hootoo and are therefore acknowledging that we don't deserve to be paid. Conversely, in virtually any paid job in the world, it is part of your contract that the results of creativity and invention on company time belong to your employers by right and you cannot hold rights to use them exclusively.

The principle supporters of piracy tend to hold notions of copyright as outdated, and point out that it has done little to dilute talent. It could be argued that it has actually accelerated the way we access media - would iTunes et al have existed if people weren't pirating mp3s in the late 90s? Would Netflix exist if BitTorrent wasn't so widely prevalent? I doubt it.

B

Rrrr!

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/

Most of the money goes to businessmen anyway, taking any profit out of their pockets is a good thing.

"Most of the money goes to businessmen anyway, taking any profit out of their pockets is a good thing" [Mr. Dreadful]

I grant the first part of your point. The second part....depends. I've seen the harm that longlasting copyrights do when the guardians of a creator's legacy are stubborn and narrow-minded. Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones ["The Fantasticks," "110 in the sun," etc.] wrote a musical adaptation of Thornston Wilder's play "Our Town," but the people who controlled rights to the play would not let them have their musical play produced.

The issue has hurt me as well. I wrote a choral setting of Robert Frost's "Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening." I won't show it to anyone, though, because I have read that Frost's ececutors are extremely fussy about whom theyb will let set Frost's poems to music.

Here's a third, very strange dimension to copyright: when the copyright for Disney's Mickey Mouse was about to expire, the U.S. Congress passed legislation lengthening the time period for protection.

Copyright law is something that fascinates me, and I disapprove of piracy on principle. However, I also disapprove of many of the arguments against piracy, including the very word /piracy/.

Hmm.

TRiG.

I think the most robust argument in favour was made by one of The Pirate Bay Four who were convicted in Sweden for running a well known search engine for torrent files (ooh. is it against House Rules to mention the existence of something that has been reported in countless other places and is known worldwide? it might give people ideas.)

A journalist asked him how he could justify downloading music, films and software for free. He replied:

'I don't care. I just take them.'

Gotta say - refreshingly honest.

It's interesting that the music industry is so concerned about piracy when so much of the dross they churn out are second rate rehashings of old songs - Is "sampling" a form of piracy?

'Original Pirate Material', innit?

i have to say that I agree with fkf that stealing art work is wrong
I've known a few people who will go to websites like deviantart for example and take pictures then have them printed themselves because it is cheaper than paying for deviantarts printing, what they fail to realise is that doing it that way means the artist gets nothing,
they may not have gotten very much in the first place but if you are trying to make your living out of art only to find out that someone is stealing it I think you have every right to get annoyed at that.
it's an industry where it is hard enough to make money as it is without people taking things that they should rightly be paying for

Tucuxii, I believe that the orginal artist will receive some payment when sampling is used..

The copyright on music is only 50 years

@Dr A:

...simply to be provocative but not necessarily agreeing with what I'm about to say...

You're saying that artists want all the benefits of making their work available online but without any of the risks?

the benifits without any of the risks... isn't that what all of us want?

On music sampling, consider the famous case of The Verve's "Bitter-sweet Symphony". Although they have had a reasonably successful career spanning well over a decade, this is by far their biggest hit, and yet they get no royalties from it. Why? Because the main sample - in fact, the main riff - comes from an orchestral version of Rolling Stones song "The Last Time". The owner of the rights to the Rolling Stones songs sued, and was awarded the full rights to the song.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Sweet_Symphony#Song_credits

Note that The Verve actually paid royalties for the sample, but it was decided that they had used 'too much' of it.

Well, yes.

But note that the internet allows an amateur/part-time artist an access to a greater distribution network to that previously available by old-fashioned methods.

Is internet + (inevitable) piracy a net loss or a net gain?

The Stones are complete pricks over copyright. Their B&W footage is up and down on YouTube.

Yet Mick Jagger has pointed out that the concept of being able to earn real money from recorded music has only applied in a tiny historical window. They were simply there at the right time.

I want people to be able to find and buy my work
i wish to use the internet for this
goodbye right to payment?

I want to sell some vegetables and eggs.
I leave them outside my gate with a tin for passers-by to put payment in.
Goodbye right to payment?

No - of course not. Passers-by should put in payment for anything they take. But a seller expecting to make sensible money should take their own reasonable measures to secure their income.

( In digital terms, I've probably just argued for DRM.)

"The copyright on music is only 50 years" [tucuxii]

That depends on the country you live in. The U.K. and the U.S. have different copyright laws.

This explains why the soundtracks from many classic films are not available from the American studios that originally made the films, as the copyrights have not yet run out in the U.S. As soon as 50 years is up, however, U.K. record companies can (and do) issue CDs of these soundtracks, using vinyl phonograph recordings as their source. The sound quality is generally not optimum, but people who wish to buy these soundtracks on CD find that they have no other choice. As an example, take the soundtrack for the 1953 film "Call me Madam." If you look it up on Amazon.com, you find that many customers rate the sound as poor, which is understandable given the source.