Internet Robin Hoods

[EvilWizardGlick]

I just think that jail time for an offense where no money was involved is absurd. Give the guys a hefty fine and a bunch of community service, but jail/prison is for people who rob liquor stores, steal cars, thump grandmothers over the head for their purses, etc. Going to jail for running a pirate FTP site?

I agree but I seriously doubt these bozos have any money.

Bozo's?
Guys that were savvy enough to have a direct pipeline to various types of new release software, and manage to distribute it on a p2p network.
Doesn't sound as if they were Bozo's to me.
Even considering that they were probably small fish, they managed to do this for YEARS.
Of course now that the RIAA/MPAA needs some good press, you know you can only arrest 90 year old grandmothers and thirteen year old girls for so long before people start going "WTF is up with that", they manage to pop some people to inflate their bust record.
My county every election year would round up all the known drug dealers. Most of these guys would either give up someone else or walk with time served. Naturally the po-lice looked good on paper, despite the fact nothing important ever came of these busts.
Now twenty years later there is smack and crack replacing the pot, and fewer arrests.
Moral of the story is what looks good on paper never translates to real world success.

[Cornucopia]

The thing about the numbers...

Everybody here has a good idea that those are inflated, but the problem is that it gets out through the media. Then the next time RIAA/MPAA wants to railroad through a new law they cite these as examples of why we should cowtow (sp?). The media get to Grandma, Grandma writes a letter to CongresspersonX, CongresspersonX agrees to vote hook-line-and sinker for RIAA/MPAA's ideas, whether they have valid grievances or not (or both).

Scott

[MOVIEGEEK]

"Guys that were savvy enough to have a direct pipeline to various types of new release software, and manage to distribute it on a p2p network."

Big deal...my 12 year old niece could do that.

I called them "bozo's" because they shared copyrighted material and thought they could get away with it.Do you think the people who downloaded this software thought they were heros...let alone know their names?Adam is right,it doesn't matter how much revenue the owners lost...they broke the law.If anybody wants to learn about copyrights search "Berne Convention" or "DMCA".

[Nilfennasion]

"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty."

Now, I will be the first to defend copyright laws when they are just. As an author looking for a break myself, I am fully behind the legal notion that Stan Lee deserves every cent he gets for the X-Men and Hulk adaptations. But to further the analogy, these lawsuits amount to nothing more than Marvel putting their foot, and a gun, on the public's head and saying "pay us". The amount they have already stolen from Stan, and continue to steal daily from the real artists, makes it the very heighth of cheek when they claim to be protecting anyone's rights.

[rabg]

Hi

It's true that people who don't have the money may buy a pirate
copy of say Photoshop so in a sense no loss to adobe or any other
expensive item of software but ask yourself this if someone were
to reduce YOUR earnings by selling your product/service whatever
in an illegal way YOU would not be happy . I for one would kick the
S**T right out of them ,think about it next time you need to
pay a bill or buy something for your wife/husband/girlfriend/kids etc.
I have no doubt most of you would be the first to complain
if it happened to YOU.


rabg

[alsyed]

i back the argument about how no money is lost if people wouldn't buy a genuine copy in the first place, and the pirated copy didn't cost a cent.

However, i feel for the person who actually was honest enough to put up the cash to buy a genuine copy. I'm sure they have a bit of anger towards someone getting a free copy hence making their copy possibly more expensive because the company brings in their supposed cost of piracy in to the sale cost of the genuine article.

jail time? i dont' believe so. Perhaps some sort of community service...

[EvilWizardGlick]

"Guys that were savvy enough to have a direct pipeline to various types of new release software, and manage to distribute it on a p2p network."

Big deal...my 12 year old niece could do that.

I called them "bozo's" because they shared copyrighted material and thought they could get away with it.Do you think the people who downloaded this software thought they were heros...let alone know their names?Adam is right,it doesn't matter how much revenue the owners lost...they broke the law.If anybody wants to learn about copyrights search "Berne Convention" or "DMCA".

So your twelve year old niece belongs to the warez pipeline?

Yes, I imagine quite a few people consider these guys hero's.
As I said when big business breaks the law no one goes to jail. Price fixing of cd's is one example. I also seem to recall some artist had his works used by big media without them paying him royalties.
They broke the law, so why are they not in jail?
If laws were applied fairly, then I could agree with you. But laws are like a shit sandwich, the more bread you have the less shit you eat.
Fell free to share that with your twelve year old warez expert.

[EvilWizardGlick]

i back the argument about how no money is lost if people wouldn't buy a genuine copy in the first place, and the pirated copy didn't cost a cent.

However, i feel for the person who actually was honest enough to put up the cash to buy a genuine copy. I'm sure they have a bit of anger towards someone getting a free copy hence making their copy possibly more expensive because the company brings in their supposed cost of piracy in to the sale cost of the genuine article.

jail time? i dont' believe so. Perhaps some sort of community service...

Remember a bought copy gives you the right of tech support. A pirated copy doesn't.

[EvilWizardGlick]

"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty."

Now, I will be the first to defend copyright laws when they are just. As an author looking for a break myself, I am fully behind the legal notion that Stan Lee deserves every cent he gets for the X-Men and Hulk adaptations. But to further the analogy, these lawsuits amount to nothing more than Marvel putting their foot, and a gun, on the public's head and saying "pay us". The amount they have already stolen from Stan, and continue to steal daily from the real artists, makes it the very heighth of cheek when they claim to be protecting anyone's rights.

I thought Stan Lee and Marvel stole quite a bit of cash from Jack Kirby?
Wasn't Frank Miller all over that a number of years ago?

[Nilfennasion]

I don't know exactly how the story goes, but the way I heard it, Stan Lee has yet to see a dime from any of the comic book properties Fox has licensed from him in the past ten years.

Either way, Fox or any other studio complaining about people stealing from them is like Ronnie Biggs complaining about getting his bank account cleaned out.

[AlecWest]

The thing about the numbers...

Everybody here has a good idea that those are inflated, but the problem is that it gets out through the media. Then the next time RIAA/MPAA wants to railroad through a new law they cite these as examples of why we should cowtow (sp?). The media get to Grandma, Grandma writes a letter to CongresspersonX, CongresspersonX agrees to vote hook-line-and sinker for RIAA/MPAA's ideas, whether they have valid grievances or not (or both).

Scott

Exactly, Scott. It's "conditioning." I've heard the RIAA say that they can't afford to experiment with as many new acts as they'd like to because they lose too much money to piracy ... that they've even had to lay off people because of piracy. What a crock. Some people can see through this to realize it's "lousy music" or "economics" that causes the lack of consumerism, not people who wouldn't buy the music anyway acquiring it free or cheaply. Likewise (getting back on topic), software publishers use the same argument. And, when John & Jane Generic hear the news about all those evil pirates causing layoffs and such, they get out their inkpens and demand justice from their legislators.

P.S. Speaking of "numbers," though, here's a set of numbers the RIAA doesn't want people to remember. Back in '95, the music industry began their MAP (minimum advertised pricing) policy. When the FTC found out about it, they called it by another name ... illegal price fixing ... which cost the consumer approximately $400,000,000 in overcharges. This, unlike the millions of dollars claimed to be lost through piracy, is real hard currency that came out of my pocket and yours. Unfortunately, the Lanham Act only gave the FTC investigative authority, not enforcement authority. That should have been a job for the Justice Department and Attorney General's office ... to take the industry into criminal court. But, it never happened.

Instead, we saw a multi-state class-action lawsuit spearheaded by NY State AG, Eliot Spitzer. And, they did a deal. The settlement forced them to pay about $68+ million to the plaintiff states for distribution to affected consumers and give $75 million worth of CDs to charitible groups or music programs (I'm guessing "retail" value, and allowing them to unload slow moving CDs in their warehouses that they couldn't otherwise sell).

Now ... do the math. $68+ million + $75 million = $143-$144 million. Ahem. If the total ripoff was $400 million, where's the remaining $256 million??? I've never had that question answered ... though I went right to the source to find out. In May 2003, CSPAN invited Gigi Sohn (Public Knowledge, advocacy group) and Mitch Glazer (RIAA toady) on the air for interviews. And, they invited callers to call in with their questions. I got through (wicked grin) and asked the question. If you have RealPlayer installed (and broadband), you can watch the short video of Mitch sidestepping my question at the link below:

http://novelhost.net/riaa.ram

Ain't I a stinker?

I guess that makes the RIAA "Reverse Robin Hoods" ... taking from the poor to give to the rich.

[Nilfennasion]

I guess that makes the RIAA "Reverse Robin Hoods" ... taking from the poor to give to the rich.

The really hilarious part is that thanks to MP3, the amount of business done by obscure labels who actually new promote new ideas or new talent has increased a hundred-fold. If broadband take-up ever does get to the unrealistic level that Microsoft seem to anticipate before 2010 (I'm guessing 2020 at the earliest, with changes in the OS market being necessary), the RIAA will be absolutely terrified because it will directly result in Ma and Pa Average finding out about the massive universe of art out there that the likes of Jack Valenti wish didn't exist. They think they have problems now? Wait until Butthole Surfers songs like The Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey's Grave start to sound normal in comparison to what the fringe market brings out.

The RIAA has had the chance to bring out new and exciting talent ever since the 1970s. Their refusal to do so in favour of what is "tried and tested" has utterly alienated the record-buying public. Unfortunately, the RIAA has basically decided that since it cannot fairly sustain its own costs of doing business, every other player in the industry and the consumer public, whether they want to or not, should subsidise them. Anyone who has studied the microeconomics of unsolicited bulk email (http://www.caube.org.au/microec.htm is a good place to start) knows what a recipe for disaster this is.

[AlecWest]

The really hilarious part is that thanks to MP3, the amount of business done by obscure labels who actually promote new ideas or new talent has increased a hundred-fold.

Very true. And the really not-so-hilarious part is that the RIAA has successfully hoodwinked the media into equating them with good and file-sharers with evil. My goodness, who is the REAL pirate here ... a pirate that has gotten away with a $256,000,000 booty without spending a single minute in a criminal court?

FWIW, after that CSPAN show (did you notice Gigi Sohn holding back laughter when I said the "MAP" word?), Gigi and I exchanged a number of emails. I will not post exactly what we discussed here since it would be unproven conjecture. But, she thinks she knows why the Justice Department took no criminal-court action against the media cartel. Let's just say that the day John Ashcroft retired was a day we both celebrated. If I said anything more, this thread might become (ulp) political.

I've felt, for a long time, that people who commit copyright infringement crimes ... like the "Robin Hoods" in this thread ... deserve what they get. But I've also felt (since 2003) that "music piracy" is not the proper phrase to use when referring to file sharing. I prefer the phrase "electronic vigilanteism." While vigilanteism is improper behavior under criminal justice, stealing from a thief who has already stolen from you does invoke a certain "poetic" justice I can appreciate. MAP came 4 years before the original Napster client. And if you're looking for pirates, Napster is the wrong place to start looking for them. You need to go back further. And, while the axiom two wrongs don't make a right is reasonable, the axiom assumes the existence of an authority that will seek redress against wrongdoers. And so far, that authority has been sitting on its thumbs. This doesn't make vigilanteism "right." But it does make it understandable.

[Gritz]

A little common sense goes a long way. Those who get busted are probably not small fry, in the sense of the word. Try to be a small fry and keep a closed lip would seem to be a good policy. IMHO

[AlecWest]

A little common sense goes a long way. Those who get busted are probably not small fry, in the sense of the word. Try to be a small fry and keep a closed lip would seem to be a good policy. IMHO

And this gets back to "numbers" again. They don't want to take someone into court for one or two songs and get some pittance to report to the press. They want to get people who share hundreds or thousands of songs. As Stacy Keach once said in Up In Smoke, "The bigger the bust, the bigger the boost."

[Nilfennasion]

As Stacy Keach once said in Up In Smoke, "The bigger the bust, the bigger the boost."

Another film containing musicians that the RIAA could have made some money by promoting instead of the sugar-coated mindless garbage that has become their modus operandi. I just loved that film for its music, honestly.

I don't honestly believe for a second that the media believes the RIAA are the good guys. It's just that the RIAA have much deeper pockets than do the independent labels or the people purchasing records. But when you think about it, imagine what would happen if the record-buying public put the money they normally put into buying records in a collective fund that eventually would finance going after the RIAA for price-fixing? That would be a sight for sore eyes.

[MOVIEGEEK]

"As I said when big business breaks the law no one goes to jail"



What about Martha Stewart,all of the Enron's CEO's,Michael Milken,Charles Keating,etc?
You need to read the newspapers more...blogs don't count.
I'm not defending the record labels and software publishers,I'm supporting the actual artists and authors.
I guess in your world stealing a CD is ok because BestBuy makes millions?

[AlecWest]

As I said when big business breaks the law no one goes to jail.

What about Martha Stewart,all of the Enron's CEO's,Michael Milken,etc?

Being a moderate, I agree with both your statements ... in part. White collar criminals go to jail. They just tend to spend less time in jail. Michael Milken is a prime example. For his monstrous crime, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. But Milken had the money to hire Herb Hoelter, who calls himself an "alternative sentencing specialist." The Washington Post calls him "the man with the get-out-of-jail-free cards." After the sentence was handed down, Hoelter got it "modified down" to only 3.5 years ... about the same amount of time an average joe gets for robbing a liquor store. In any case, just remember that big sentences handed down by judges (that make it to the front page of newspapers) are not necessarily the sentences actually served by the ultra-rich. They're generally argued down, equivocated, or modified (in court actions that don't make it to the front page).

It will be interesting to see if Enron big-shots are forced to endure their full sentences.

[EvilWizardGlick]

"As I said when big business breaks the law no one goes to jail"



What about Martha Stewart,all of the Enron's CEO's,Michael Milken,Charles Keating,etc?
You need to read the newspapers more...blogs don't count.
I'm not defending the record labels and software publishers,I'm supporting the actual artists and authors.
I guess in your world stealing a CD is ok because BestBuy makes millions?

Be real. Martha 8 months on a questionable charge.
What jail time have the Enron guys gotten for stealing BILLIONS and entering into a conspiracy to defraud California? Where is the RICO charge on that.
You can steal BILLIONS of dollars that affect REAL people, go to a country club prison and walk in a very short time.
But copy a dvd with an illusory price value and you get tagged for 3 to six. Or as with Tommy Chong go to club fed for a couple of years.
Show me the fairness of any of that.
I also understand that a number of the Keating Five are still either holding office, or getting respectable salaries. Why were they not jailed?
Could it be they were politicians at the time?
Who took the fall for the BILLIONS missing from the S&L scandal? I can't recall the investors getting their money back.
1.3 TRILLION dollars can not be accounted for by the Department of Defense, not to mention the NINE BILLION missing in Iraq.
Who pays for that? The Taxpayer.
Who goes to jail?
No one.
As I said the more bread you have the less shit you eat.

[Radixmind]

so now where saying what?

that the western world's legal system is the friend of the rich man, and the enemy of the poor man?

look a little closer, you'll se that the reason for this is that the legal system IS the rich man - those that are in it's employ charge a great fat fee for their sevices. the more you can pay, the better your chances are for success, or at least lenient sentencing. even the judges are paid hansomely for their 'impartial' judgement. but their salary comes from the government, and government must'nt upset big business... must'nt hurt the money.

but those lawyers and judges earn every penny of their sevices...dont they? or are their charges as overinflated as the prices of the DVD's and CD's the big companies put on the shelves for us to buy?

and if that's the case, and if ultimately WE decide what we should pay for those CD's and DVD's, whether it be the official price or the 'pirate' price, then how far away are we from doing the same with our justice? can't afford the legal fees? try pirate justice! it's cheap, it's easy and let's face it, it's the people's justice, not those stuck up rich execs justice, let them pay those stupid prices, we're smarter than that...

law should know no class, race, gender or monetary price. if it isnt, then it's defective. and a defective law allows for all sorts of chaos.

[AlecWest]

I just loved that film for its music, honestly.

My mama's talkin' to me
She tells me how to live,
Duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh, duh duh duhhhhh.

But I don't listen to her
'Cause my head is like a sieve.
Duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh, duh duh duhhhhh.

[MOVIEGEEK]

"My mother caught me in the bathroom with a pair of pantyhose
duh-duh-duh........"

Cheech & Chong,oh man that brings back memories!

[Nilfennasion]

I was thinking more of whatever song it was that The Whores performed. I'd kill to have the complete version of that on CD. Not surprisingly, one goes to Amazon and gets absolutely nothing when they do a search for The Whores under music.

And the RIAA wonder why their sales have been in a slump for twenty-plus years.

[honorarybrutha]

I was thinking more of whatever song it was that The Whores performed. I'd kill to have the complete version of that on CD. Not surprisingly, one goes to Amazon and gets absolutely nothing when they do a search for The Whores under music.

And the RIAA wonder why their sales have been in a slump for twenty-plus years.

you may have to look on a P2P network to find it! sorry, i just couldn't resist jumping on that one.

[Nilfennasion]

As soon as I find a P2P client that doesn't put spyware on my computer, I will start looking.

[EvilWizardGlick]

As soon as I find a P2P client that doesn't put spyware on my computer, I will start looking.

Um, E-MULE.

[oldfart13]

So, now with these convictions under their belt when are they going after the mainland Chinese pirates...oh, wait a minute. We tried that and lost in THEIR court. That was for duplicating Volkswagon cars among other things....

[mattyboy]

Regardless of what was right or wrong, that much jail time is insane for this type of crime.
Child molestors get less.

[ViRaL1]

Regardless of what was right or wrong, that much jail time is insane for this type of crime.
Child molestors get less.

I'd say up the time for molestors accordingly.

[mattyboy]

right. But thats another point.