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Morality of Torrenting....
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Post by
Squishalot
And the rules she came up for her restaurant are a little much for the area she's in.
Actually, it's not. There are plenty of people who are willing to abide by set rules. Just not enough to stay profitable. Kinda like where we're going to get to with piracy, where less and less people are going to be happy to abide by set rules, and eventually, the companies will get sick of it and shut their doors. Is it any wonder that the gaming world is getting slowly absorbed by Vivendi and EA? Indie game developers wouldn't be selling out to the big companies if they could actually make money from their games, no?
But there's still the fact that if she's that tired of it, why not get someone else to manage it and just sit back and count the money she's raking in? Closing the doors due to personal dislike of the customers is an almost childish move.
Because it's not just a personal dislike of the customers, it's an affront to her philosophy of life. It'd be like asking you to rake the money in from boat rentals knowing that it's being used to support illegal whaling.
If they can't bring it home because they didn't have a container, then it will just go to waste because she refuses to give out "doggy bags".
Not quite. If they can't bring it home because they didn't have a container, they'd be kicked out before they could order in the first instance.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
204878
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Post by
Nathanyal
If they can't bring it home because they didn't have a container, then it will just go to waste because she refuses to give out "doggy bags".
Not quite. If they can't bring it home because they didn't have a container, they'd be kicked out before they could order in the first instance.
But how do they (those working) know if they (the customer) will eat it all or not? Like when people say "My eyes were bigger than my stomach", they think they could eat what they got but couldn't after all. But they would gladly take it home but can't because they don't have their container.
I have gone out to eat at some places, and order a little more than what I could eat. But I thought I could eat it all as I didn't eat much else that day.
Post by
168916
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
I think Adamsm was right calling it childish. This is how it appears to me:
Customers: We like what you're selling, but not how you're selling it.
Their response:
If you don't like it, go somewhere else
.
Fixed for you. I see no reason why any business should be at the whim of customers without any respect for the rules and regulations of an institution, especially in a competitive enterprise like retail services. That's also the reason why I respect the fact that companies like Blizzard are introducing internet-access requirements for their games like Diablo 3, even if I don't like it. If I don't like it enough, I simply won't buy the game, as I have with FF3 for Android (because I think the idea of a tablet game which requires internet access is absurd).
But how do they (those working) know if they (the customer) will eat it all or not? Like when people say "My eyes were bigger than my stomach", they think they could eat what they got but couldn't after all. But they would gladly take it home but can't because they don't have their container.
They don't know, but one of the rules is that you can't dine unless you have your container around in case you can't finish. That's what I mean by being kicked out before they could order.
Imagine that your container is your membership pass. That's how I sort of envisage it - you have to show it before you're let in.
Post by
Nathanyal
They don't know, but one of the rules is that you can't dine unless you have your container around in case you can't finish. That's what I mean by being kicked out before they could order.
Imagine that your container is your membership pass. That's how I sort of envisage it - you have to show it before you're let in.
Okay, I can imagine that. But having to always bring the container with you is a bit tedious imo. The only rules I read were the ones they had in that article, which I guess isn't all the rules they have.
Post by
204878
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Magician22773
Recent non-entertainment company example here - if you can't follow a few rules set by whoever you're buying from, I don't think you deserve the product.
To each their own. It is her resturant, and she can run it, or run it into the ground, as she see's fit. Is actaully a pretty viable business market. Making a club or resturant "exclusive" with outrageous rules will actually draw a type of customer to it.
I actually did smomething similar several years ago with my business. I had a pretty good sized electrical contracting business that did very well during the building boom. We wired everything from basic starter homes to several retail chain stores...with Abercrombie & Fitch being one of my bigger clients.
When the retail expansion boom ended, and the cheap, starter housing market began to dwindle, I downsized to a crew of only 3 people, myself included, and I began to seek out builders that built ultra high-end homes.
I refused to give "bids" on projects, only estimates. And I often told potential builders that if they wanted the cheapest and fastest electrical crew that I wasn't it. In fact, I let them know that I was probably the slowest and most expensive electrician they would ever have. But I guaranteed absolute perfection in my work.
And, until the ecomony collasped, I did quite well. On average, I charged as much as 5 times what I was charging when I was bidding jobs competitively. I wired houses for musicians and professional football players. I had homes featured in magizines, and participated in an "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" TV show. By marketing my company as something different and better than all the rest, I had builders that were willing to pay to use my services as a way to market
their
homes.
And, in all honestly, I wasn't doing much more than what I had done before. I had a little better quality control, and did some things like automation and lighting that I normally would not have done, but all in all, I just did a good job.
Post by
Squishalot
That response works for restaurants where there is a choice, but not for media which is protected by copyright law and there is no other option for where to get it.
As opposed to physical items which are protected by trade practice laws?
What about copyright law do you believe is inherently unfair, and warrants breaking/ignoring, compared to every other law? I don't believe we've ever actually gotten down in to the nuts and bolts of the issue.
Post by
168916
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Post by
204878
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Post by
gamerunknown
Is it any wonder that the gaming world is getting slowly absorbed by Vivendi and EA?
and the East India Company had to shoulder the burden after all the proles produced their own salt. Woe betide them.
Post by
168916
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Post by
Squishalot
The length of them. The duration of copyright in the US has gone from 28 years (14 with the option to renew for another 14) to 70 years after the death of the creator thanks to the successful lobbying of the entertainment industries. This stifles creativity and has allowed monopolies to be created from the works of others, for example the older Disney cartoons which were around for hundreds of years in some cases before their cartoons, are now perpetually locked as their property preventing anyone from building on or remaking those works, which was how the entire company was founded in the first place.
Can you explain to me precisely how increasing the duration of copyright from 28 years to, perhaps, 100 years (being 70 + hypothetical median age until death)
stifles copyright
? If you're drawing on ideas that are 28 years old to produce new content, they're neither a) creative or b) innovative (being derivative works of others). If anything, the increase in copyright term allows people greater financial freedom to pursue truly creative / innovative ideas/products, because of the knowledge that their rights to those ideas/products will be protected.
That said, I fail to see how this relates to the copyright issue of piracy that we've been discussing.
Which raises a further point, that "after death" clause, that's just plain wrong. Why? Because at that point it's not anyone having to do with the work benefiting, it's huge companies that inherit or buy them which takes the power out of the cold dead hands of the people it was originally created to protect and (usually) gives it to one of the big 5. The massive amount of time after the deaths has made it possible for these huge companies to exist in the first place and allows them to continue to hoard ideas and make sure nobody but them can do anything with them.
As with above, if it's a copyright-able idea/product, then it's fair compensation for their cost of developing the idea/product. Suppose some guy creates the fictional world of Warcraft, at significant cost to themselves in terms of opportunity cost they could have spent working and earning a wage, the actual cost of materials to produce it, the cost of marketing it to publishers, etc.. Blizzard comes along and purchases the idea for a given price, with the knowledge that they will own the rights to it for a great deal of time.
Who are the laws intended to protect here? The content owner - the guy who created the idea, up until the point that he sells his content, at which point, the laws are intended to protect the new content owner (i.e. Blizzard, in this example). The fact that the guy who created the idea is dead or alive is irrelevant to who owns the content, and who deserves the rights to utilise that content. What is morally (or otherwise) wrong with companies owning rights to content? What does the concept of hoarding ideas have to do with piracy?
There are rules in relation to mining in Australia at least that relate to companies having rights over mining tenements - they can drill, explore, mine, etc., but they lose their rights if they stop utilising the tenement. Would you be objectionable if a company were to have to forego their rights to copyright content if they weren't acceptably utilising that copyright in a way that added value? (e.g. Disney not producing any more work / selling any more dvds in the Aladdin universe means that it's fair game for others to utilise, wheras Blizzard continuing to produce Warcraft-related content means that it's fairly copyrighted)
Overall, again, I fail to see how this relates to the copyright issue of piracy that we've been discussing.
It's created the new industry of Copyright trolls. 'Nuff said on that one.
The Wiki you've linked seems to suggest that copyright trolls in recent times have all failed at achieving their goals, just like domain squatters. Should the use of domain names be thrown out, because it created the new industry of
Domain squatters
? The fundamental benefits of the copyright philosophy outweigh the negligible cost of copyright trolling.
And again, I fail to see how this relates to the copyright issue of piracy that we've been discussing.
The cost of enforcement.
Are you seriously:
a) Comparing piracy to prostitution? (Note - at least prostitutes have ownership over their bodies, which is far more rights than pirates can claim to have over their content)
b) Comparing piracy to drug trafficking? (Again - at least drug dealers have ownership over their drugs, which is far more rights than pirates can claim to have over their content)
Note the key differences in the examples provided by Friedman and Phillips compared to piracy. In both their examples, the seller of a product has actual ownership rights over the product / service being sold.
Look how damn well Steam is doing. As soon as someone makes a Steam for movies, they'll win. But they won't, because they'd make more money selling it on the new physical format every 10 years filled with unskippable adverts six months after it's out in the cinema (later if you're not American) and region locked to enforce it. As Gabe Newell put it, "Piracy is a service problem".
Cost of game development:
~$10m for single platform games
and 18-28m for multi-platform ones. Modern Warfare 2 was high up at 50-60m.
Cost of movie development:
$40-100m for an average movie, and easily over 200m
for the big blockbusters.
Considering those costs, I don't think the Steam model is viable, because the end result will still be too expensive for users when the alternative is piracy. As you say, there are other legitimate means of getting access to movies cheaper than seeing them in cinemas, yet piracy is still rampant. What makes you think that the Steam model, which is essentially what Netflix and others are doing, will be successful for the entire industry?
You will be dead before anybody is allowed to retell or re-imagine the Star Wars or Harry Potter or story without them having to worry about being sued into destitution.
You know what? I'm not particularly concerned, considering that
fan fiction
and
parody
aren't restricted by copyright. I think it's a great thing that people can't make copies of Star Wars and sell it as their own product, because it will encourage them to come up with new ideas for themselves. Do you think that JK Rowling would have gone to all the effort of writing the Harry Potter series if people could just rip it off? I think that changing copyright laws to suit the mindset that you have would do a whole lot more to damage creativity and innovation than what we have today.
Post by
168916
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Post by
331902
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Post by
gamerunknown
pirates can claim to have over their content
This having may be called the natural or original ownership, as it is purely a physical relationship of man to the goods, independent of social relations between men or of a legal order. The significance of the legal concept of property lies just in this—that it differentiates between the physical has and the legal should have.
Not only honest but dishonest possessors, even robbers and thieves, may claim protection for their possession.
La propriété, c'est le vol!
Post by
Squishalot
@ gamerunknown - that's just semantics. I can simply rephrase - that the prostitute and the drug dealer have both physical and legal ownership over their products, distinguishing it from the pirate.
Post by
168916
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Post by
Squishalot
I hold that the only consistent way to look at the issue is in terms of licensing. When you use a game or an iPhone app off a warez site it's pretty unambiguous that you are violating someone's TOU - it's conceptually similar to what happens when you e.g. use GNU-licensed source code in a closed-source program. You haven't stolen anything, you've simply violated the terms under which the creator offered his work to be used.
The thing is, others in the past have espoused the idea that when you purchase a game, you own it in a property sense, and that TOUs aren't enforceable (which I disagree with).
And to me this is why the thing breaks down for TV shows. It's not obvious to me that someone can broadcast video over the public airwaves (so to speak), but also impose a license on how the content may be viewed. To me that seems akin to putting a piece of art on display in the park and saying nobody is allowed to photograph it.
I disagree - firstly, isn't most pirated content coming from cable TV channels? Secondly, there are licensing terms associated with free-to-air broadcasts in legislation generally. You can't dig up the flower beds at the park despite them being available for public viewing, despite the lack of explicit rules to say as much - there are underlying laws that restrict such behaviour.
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