PIPA support collapses, with 13 new Senators opposed
84 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;34288232]
[B]Piracy isn't a problem.[/B] It's a natural consequence of the fact that [I]information wants to be free[/I], and right now several industries exist with a size unwarranted by what they provide. And they're going to die. It's scary, nobody wants to admit it, or wants to pretend we can come up with an ad-hoc solution, or try to make a moral argument based on factually incorrect notions that creators will be hurt more than the people who fund those creators, but it's the truth. Cinema, music, gaming, it's all been gradually slipping from a position where the sales of data are profitable, and that cannot and should not be stopped. The written word moved the fuck on. So can they.
[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry, but what the fuck? Do you have any idea how much it costs to make a movie or video game? Who the hell are you tell people that they should work for years, and up to 20 hours a day during crunch time, that they deserve nothing but what people pay out of goodwill, out of some completely irrational belief that something should have no value because it's "just data." I like indie games as much as the next guy, but my only choice in the future is of movies and games that people made in their spare time because the sale of data "cannot and should not" be profitable, I'm not going to be very happy. I hate the insane fervor with which corporations go after what should just be a legal slap on the wrist, but I also hate it when people try and justify their cheapness with the illogical belief that shouldn't be able to profit off an intangible product and inane and meaningless platitudes like "information wants to be free" to justify it.
[QUOTE=CheeseMan;34289539]Are you saying that anything produced on a computer is fair game because it's not physical?[/QUOTE]
I am saying that information is naturally inclined to spread at a minimal cost that doesn't necessarily involve paying the original producer to obtain it.
Which isn't that hard of a concept to understand. All products tend to be distributed as cheaply as possible, and you routinely buy things second-hand in the western world, with the transaction having no impact on the original producer.
[QUOTE=CheeseMan;34289539]I'm assuming you aren't a coder / digital artist (then again, neither am I), but if you were one wouldn't you be incensed if after you spent half a year creating and compiling an operating system that makes a robot walk, someone copied that and distributed it for free because it's just data? Regardless of the form it's in, it didn't just pop into existence - someone had to not only think of the idea, but create it via is own volition. I'm desperately hoping you aren't correct because if you are, that means that dozens of markets will die because there'll be no economic feasibility in them.[/QUOTE]
One, I haven't been terribly active of late, but yes, by virtue of career overlap I've had to code before, and I make music, some of which is sold online.
Two, you're making a mistake in assuming a thing should recoup cost [I]after[/I] production, which isn't necessarily the case. There's also the fact that [URL="http://apcmag.com/linux-now-75-corporate.htm"]a lot of free stuff has paid development.[/URL] Your operating system was probably the worst analogy you could come up with, because it would quite likely have a sponsored development by a company developing a robot.
[QUOTE=SCopE5000;34289583]I kinda disagree on the 'musicians shouldn't get anything' idea because there is still work involved in producing mastered originals.[/QUOTE]
They won't "not get anything", though, they'll just change models. Read Music 3.0, or [URL="http://bobbyowsinski.com/Music_3.0_Chapter_4_Excerpt.html"]at least this chunk of it[/URL] (which is free, haw haw haw):
[QUOTE]An artist in M30 requires an entirely new marketing plan because what was commonly used for M1.0 through 2.5 certainly doesn’t work anymore, at least with the degree of success that it once had. Traditional media like radio is no longer a major music marketing factor nor is television, except if you’re an artist where your image counts more than your music.
The major marketing tool for the M30 artist is the music itself. It’s no longer the major product that the artist has to sell, although it still is a product, so has to be used differently and thought of differently as a result.
Perhaps recorded music was never the product we were led to believe it was. In the M1.0 and M1.5 days of vinyl records and CDs, the round plastic piece (the container that held the music) was the product. The artist never made money when a song was played on the radio (the songwriter always did, although the artist might soon get their due depending on the status of current legislation), and the artist only made a small percentage (10 to 15% of wholesale on average) of CD or vinyl sales. The artist made the most money on concert tickets and merchandise while touring. There was a cost involved in the manufacturing of the the container that transported the music (physical material costs, artwork, etc.) that had to be recouped as well as the production costs of the music. But if you look at music in terms of the advertising world, you see music in a different light.
If you’re selling a soap product for instance, the production for a commercial to broadcast on television or the radio is a trivial cost. It’s the total ad buy (the agency purchasing the radio or television time for the sponsor) where most money is spent. Even then, it’s considered part of the marketing budget of the product, which might be about 3% of total sales.
In M30, if you consider the music production costs as part of the marketing budget in the same way as a national product, it takes on a whole new meaning.
Since the music is considered the major marketing tool for an artist, it should be considered a free product, a giveaway, an enticement. Give it away on your website, place it on the Torrents for P2P, let your fans freely distribute it. It’s all OK. Since most millennial’s feel that music should be free and have lived in a culture where that’s mostly so, don’t fight it. Go with the flow! Just as it was during the last 60 years, the real money in the music business is made elsewhere anyway.
Plus, just because you’re giving it away doesn’t mean that you can’t charge for it either at the same time or sometime in the future. There are numerous cases where sales have actually decreased for an artist’s iTunes tracks when the free tracks have been eliminated.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=SCopE5000;34289583]Record labels/recording contracts should certainly not exist anymore, and artists should get MUCH more of the money split (aka all of it, aside from maybe 5p per track to support the website hosting and managing billing).[/QUOTE]
Labels shouldn't even necessarily disappear, but the focus of the industry's efforts need to change. And to be fair, they are changing. Not everyone is nearsighted.
[QUOTE=Mingebox;34289717]I'm sorry, but what the fuck? Do you have any idea how much it costs to make a movie or video game? Who the hell are you tell people that they should work for years, and up to 20 hours a day during crunch time, that they deserve nothing but what people pay out of goodwill, out of some completely irrational belief that something should have no value because it's "just data." I like indie games as much as the next guy, but my only choice in the future is of movies and games that people made in their spare time because the sale of data "cannot and should not" be profitable, I'm not going to be very happy. I hate the insane fervor with which corporations go after what should just be a legal slap on the wrist, but I also hate it when people try and justify their cheapness with the illogical belief that shouldn't be able to profit off an intangible product and inane and meaningless platitudes like "information wants to be free" to justify it.[/QUOTE]
Might I remind you that several masterpieces such as Cave Story were made entirely as affairs of love first and foremost, with no desire for any financial compensation? Heck, let's not forget the number of games that started out as free mods. People will still make art even when it costs them money to do so, making this argument fallacious. Hell, I'm an example- I've got more money sunk in music production kit than you've likely got in your car, if you're old enough to own one, and I've only ever done this shit for the gusto. I'd also like you to take a look at some free to play games (like, you know, this obscure one you may not have heard of called Team Fortress 2) and my previous comment in this post on how making things free does not magically halt paid development, but simply changes business models.
Wow, go team!
[QUOTE=latin_geek;34285460]PIPA in spanish is a smoking pipe, SOPA is soup (and it's kind of a national thing around here to hate soup)[/QUOTE]
PIPA is slang in my language for a nasty bloody wart.
[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;34289883]
Might I remind you that several masterpieces such as Cave Story were made entirely as affairs of love first and foremost, with no desire for any financial compensation? Heck, let's not forget the number of games that started out as free mods. People will still make art even when it costs them money to do so, making this argument fallacious. Hell, I'm an example- I've got more money sunk in music production kit than you've likely got in your car, if you're old enough to own one, and I've only ever done this shit for the gusto. I'd also like you to take a look at some free to play games (like, you know, this obscure one you may not have heard of called Team Fortress 2) and my previous comment in this post on how making things free does not magically halt paid development, but simply changes business models.[/QUOTE]
I already mentioned that I've enjoyed many low-budget indie games, but I don't want that to be the only option. Same goes with Free-to-play, it has its niche, it doesn't work for every type of gamer or genre. And what about single player games like Skyrim or Deus Ex that were made by hundreds of people working for several years?
[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;34289883]
One, I haven't been terribly active of late, but yes, by virtue of career overlap I've had to code before, and I make music, some of which is sold online.
Two, you're making a mistake in assuming a thing should recoup cost [I]after[/I] production, which isn't necessarily the case. There's also the fact that [URL="http://apcmag.com/linux-now-75-corporate.htm"]a lot of free stuff has paid development.[/URL] Your operating system was probably the worst analogy you could come up with, because it would quite likely have a sponsored development by a company developing a robot.
[/QUOTE]
You very clearly dodged around his question.
Would you be angry if you developed software intended for sale, let's say you worked on it for 20 years and were intending on selling it to another person for $30 million, then that person instead of paying for it just stole it off your computer? More precisely, would it be [I]right[/I] for them to have stole that software.
The reason why these products are worth so much is because you could never, or at least won't, [I]ever[/I] make what the person/company made yourself; you have neither the ideas, nor knowledge to. Even [I]if[/I] a person/company recoded let's say Halo: Reach all by themselves, remade the models, redid all the voice acting, music, levels, sound effects, etc., etc. It would [I]still[/I] not be okay to give it away for free [I]or[/I] sell it.
Why?
Because none of that shit was original content! Impressive as it might be for them to have done all of that, you can't remake a game and call it your own. They would never have been able to develop all of the content they did if they hadn't already seen it in Halo. By all means, borrow ideas, but you can't steal the whole damn thing.
Make a song inspired by another song, cool, go for it. But don't remake the entire song and call it your own.
I could not make any of Infected Mushroom's songs (at least not now), and that is why it is valuable. Even if I could, it wouldn't be right to give away their idea without permission. Data is perhaps more valuable in fact than any mineral you could dig up, because unique thoughts, data, and information are rarer even than gold. Gold can be found all over the universe. A challenge you to find the same exact (or even close) order of 1s and 0s outside of planet Earth, of any Infected Mushroom song.
Because this is is internet related, and its the end of a major battle.
TRON references are go.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0FwEmUycYI[/media]
[img]http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-pcgaming.gif[/img]
[QUOTE=Mingebox;34290421]I already mentioned that I've enjoyed many low-budget indie games, but I don't want that to be the only option. Same goes with Free-to-play, it has its niche, it doesn't work for every type of gamer or genre. And what about single player games like Skyrim or Deus Ex that were made by hundreds of people working for several years?[/QUOTE]
F2P isn't the only model for making money on a game out there. Quit looking at how things are sold in this current industry and thinking that's the only way anything could ever come to exist. Look forward, look backward, [I]think[/I] rather than assuming the present rules are the only rules.
[QUOTE=Master X;34291262]You very clearly dodged around his question.[/QUOTE]
It's an asinine question. I didn't dodge it, I dismissed it, there's a difference.
[QUOTE=Master X;34291262]Would you be angry if you developed software intended for sale, let's say you worked on it for 20 years and were intending on selling it to another person for $30 million, then that person instead of paying for it just stole it off your computer? More precisely, would it be [I]right[/I] for them to have stole that software.[/QUOTE]
This is like asking if I'd be mad if someone stole my wallet had I left it sitting in the open. Sure, I guess, but primarily at myself. You don't deserve economic protection for being dense and not understanding your environment. You'd need to give a person fifteen botched lobotomies before they would develop something for 20 years which could be stolen casually and be worth $30mil USD were it not stolen. This also applies to a grand total of jack shit, so it's not worth hypothesizing over.
[QUOTE=Master X;34291262]The reason why these products are worth so much is because you could never, or at least won't, [I]ever[/I] make what the person/company made yourself; you have neither the ideas, nor knowledge to.[/QUOTE]
...data is valuable because if someone didn't make it, it wouldn't exist.
That's not really a cogent thought. That makes a person who develops data valuable, not the data itself. These are distinct concepts. A creator is valuable because he creates, but he may create things of no inherent value, and there are already a great many models for people to support creators while still getting their primary creations for free.
[QUOTE=Master X;34291262]Even [I]if[/I] a person/company recoded let's say Halo: Reach all by themselves, remade the models, redid all the voice acting, music, levels, sound effects, etc., etc. It would [I]still[/I] not be okay to give it away for free [I]or[/I] sell it.
Why?
Because none of that shit was original content! Impressive as it might be for them to have done all of that, you can't remake a game and call it your own. They would never have been able to develop all of the content they did if they hadn't already seen it in Halo. By all means, borrow ideas, but you can't steal the whole damn thing.
Make a song inspired by another song, cool, go for it. But don't remake the entire song and call it your own.
I could not make any of Infected Mushroom's songs (at least not now), and that is why it is valuable. Even if I could, it wouldn't be right to give away their idea without permission. Data is perhaps more valuable in fact than any mineral you could dig up, because unique thoughts, data, and information are rarer even than gold. Gold can be found all over the universe. A challenge you to find the same exact (or even close) order of 1s and 0s outside of planet Earth, of any Infected Mushroom song.[/QUOTE]
You're relying on the premise that an original idea is inherently of value. It isn't. Halo Reach and Infected Mushroom music are completely meaningless to me, along with a large amount of the population. I dig something out of the earth, there's a market for it, even if it's just soil. I write something, or program something, or record something, the value is contextual. You don't need a program that calculates weedwhacker maintenance schedules based on usage statistics. I would be a moron for making it with the intent to make money off of it without first knowing if somebody needed it and was willing to offer something for it.
Also, the "original content" thing is meaningless. You're assuming either consumers like yourself who value knockoffs appropriately (i.e. lowly) don't exist and that it's impossible to create a perfect knockoff, which isn't true. I mean, go back to books- I know someone who likes Stephen King a bit. If I give them a hastily photocopied stack of paper containing something of his, they likely won't find it acceptable. If I provide them with a proper copy at no cost (I stole it from the library, got it as a gift, I reproduced it perfectly with black magic, whatever), they're likely to end up paying for something of his anyway because they [I]value the creator.[/I] The [I]data[/I] is just data, the [I]creator[/I] is still worth something. [URL="https://torrentfreak.com/internet-piracy-boosts-anime-sales-study-concludes-110203/"]This happens with other media.[/URL]
You should read [URL="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas_pr.html"]this.[/URL] I think a lot of you guys are running at me like I'm advocating crushing artists when I'm more saying how an artist gets funded has to change, is changing, and will change, which is reflected in current media sales and the other directions previous media have taken.
[QUOTE=Rocko's;34286435]FINALLY a Florida senator that isn't fucking dumb. Down with SOPA/PIPA![/QUOTE]
Not really. Rubio is a republican sell out who does literally anything they tell him to. He's stepping down from this since he wants to get re elected.
[QUOTE=Aman VII;34283985]Man I like how so many of those politicians flip flopped cause they saw who was going to win and saw the outcry. Really makes their motives as politicians transparent.
I'd rather have a politician who actually stands for their principles rather than someone just there for the money.
Them doing it is for the better obviously but it shows their true colours.[/QUOTE]
Politicians should have a maximum wage so they can't do this shit! Anything over the limit is donated to charity!
[QUOTE=Stockers678;34295209]Politicians should have a maximum wage so they can't do this shit! Anything over the limit is donated to charity![/QUOTE]
As noble as that sounds, you do know money is the universal game changer. That law would probably get lobbied into the ground before it even hit the houses.
[QUOTE=xxfalconxx;34296231]As noble as that sounds, you do know money is the universal game changer. That law would probably get lobbied into the ground before it even hit the houses.[/QUOTE]The problem is that corporate lobbyists would not give a shit, just as they do not give a shit now. They'd still bribe and buy politicians just like any other day. They wouldn't give a fuck.
[QUOTE=Doctor Zedacon;34296301]The problem is that corporate lobbyists would not give a shit, just as they do not give a shit now. They'd still bribe and buy politicians just like any other day. They wouldn't give a fuck.[/QUOTE]
Politicians should take the money...
...and then do what [b]they[/b] want regardless of what the corporations want.
[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;34292464]This is like asking if I'd be mad if someone stole my wallet had I left it sitting in the open. Sure, I guess, but primarily at myself. You don't deserve economic protection for being dense and not understanding your environment. You'd need to give a person fifteen botched lobotomies before they would develop something for 20 years which could be stolen casually and be worth $30mil USD were it not stolen. This also applies to a grand total of jack shit, so it's not worth hypothesizing over[/QUOTE]
I figured that you would dodge around that too. I was exaggerating so that you would more clearly see how wrong that is. A more accurate example would be working on a program for a week under the premise that you would be paid upon completion by a company, then having said company tell you they're not going to pay you, but use your software anyways. Honestly, how long you worked on it, and how much you're getting paid isn't important. What is important is that the company stole the software you created. Even if a hypothetical person comes along, pities you, and gives the money the company would have, it doesn’t change the fact that it was stolen.
In the case of a song, the development of the original music is the service; not paying for it is theft, regardless of whether or not you managed to acquire it yourself.
[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;34292464]
...data is valuable because if someone didn't make it, it wouldn't exist.
That's not really a cogent thought. That makes a person who develops data valuable, not the data itself. These are distinct concepts. A creator is valuable because he creates, but he may create things of no inherent value, and there are already a great many models for people to support creators while still getting their primary creations for free.
[/QUOTE]
Data is everywhere. Data is [I]everything[/I]. I do concede that data is not valuable because someone made it, nor is intrinsically valuable, rather that data is valuable because of the particular order it's arranged in. I would argue that man is valuable because of our complex and unique arrangement of data, not necessarily [I]because [/I]we create things. In other words, I would argue that something such as a potato is also valuable, however even though your average potato contains more data (at least in its chromosomes) than your average human, that it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s comprised of a higher worth (because as I said earlier, data isn’t intrinsically valuable [rather the unique format of said data is]). You are data, and I am data; and assuming you don't believe we were made by a supreme being, [I]and [/I]you're willing to agree that humans (as a whole or individually, although not not necessarily you or I in particular) are valuable, then it's safe to say that something doesn't have to be necessarily creative or created to be valuable. Value is often times (though not always) determined simply by rarity. Diamonds for example, which I do realize have actual industrial uses, aren't worth as much as they are because of that fact, but rather because of how rare they are relative to our particular location and our ability to retrieve them. It is at this point philosophically that we have to ask ourselves whether diamonds themselves are valuable, or the person who owns the diamonds. In other words, is a bag of diamonds sitting on a table worth anything if it has no owner? Can only people be of worth? Perhaps, but for the sake of argument, let’s agree otherwise.
It's at this point that one would argue that because the data of... say a song, is replicable and is easily retrievable from your location that it is not valuable. However, beyond the fact that this is not the natural order of things (that is to say that digital data is unnatural), it is undeniable that [I]economically[/I], digital data does have value. While it's intrinsically difficult to define value, because value is entirely subjective, economically it's quite simple. In this case, the classical equation of supply vs. demand quickly disintegrates, because in our case there is an infinite (or at least near infinite) supply. However, …
You know what... never mind. I'm tired of writing, and the words aren't coming together how I want them to anyways. I'll save it for a book or speech or something.
I’ve got calculus and physics homework to do.
I’ll hit you up later with my finished more refined thoughts if I time.
[QUOTE=lavacano;34296712]Politicians should take the money...
...and then do what [b]they[/b] want regardless of what the corporations want.[/QUOTE]If they do what the corporations want, then they can get more money later on.
why do i have the feeling a similar bill will happen right after this?
Hear that, MPAA? That's the sound of the will of the people. The government serves the people, not you sickening masturbatory money-grubbing...er, masturbastards.
(Well, ideally the government would serve the will of the people and the will of the people alone, but that's not the case most of the time... Still, at least this is the exception.)
Its safe to say that SOPA will offically be dead within the next few weeks.
Whew at least my Congressman opposes SOPA
[QUOTE=Justin Amash (R-MI)]SOPA grants the federal government and Atty. Gen. Eric Holder vast new powers to blacklist entire foreign websites that are accused of containing even one instance of copyright-infringing materials. Search engines would be prohibited from linking to any portion of that domain. We must protect copyright, but this bill represents a major step toward Internet censorship. It has the potential for tremendous abuse, and the extraordinary requirements it imposes will stifle the free flow of knowledge and information. Together, we will fight it[/quote]
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