arstechnica.com— A pirate who was sentenced to five years in jail for illegally downloading a movie from a Bittorrent site has been told that, under the terms of his probation, he has to switch to Microsoft Windows.
Aug 24, 2007View in Crawl 4
"Those digital files you're sharing? Those are someones property."Can something intangible and infinitely copyable at zero marginal cost really be property? I don't believe so, but the opinions vary widely. For the government to take one stance or another on a non-proven matter is silly."So it costs you money. When you take it without paying the money, it's stealing."No, it isn't. Stealing is the act of taking something without the owner's permission and having them lose that thing as a result. Walk into a store and grab something off the shelf, that's theft because the store loses that item - they cannot sell that item anymore because now YOU have it. When copying, they do NOT lose the item in question - they just continue selling copies of the -same exact thing- at zero additional manufacturing cost beyond the obvious cost of boxing, media, etc. - if it is distributed over the internet, at zero marginal cost whatsoever."Do you think these people should not get paid for what they do? Do you think no one should pay for it? Or maybe just some people, but not others?"I definitely believe they deserve to get paid. He pointed out that their business model is outdated. There are ways to make money which embrace the most amazing attribute of intangible media - infinite free copying. For one method that applies to music, please see my comments history, about a year ago."Wake up. Piracy isn't right, or righteous. It's illegal. I do it too, and ***** me blind if I don't hate the RIAA and the MPAA, but terrorism? Do they really terrify you? No. They set an example to prevent illegal activity."Come on, now - you're smart. You can go beyond thinking of things as black and white - legal good, illegal bad, end of story. Something that is legal is not necessarily right, and something that is illegal is not necessarily wrong. "This is illegal, so it must be EVIL!" simple isn't the case."There needs to be control over content, that's how America runs - on money."Yes, but wouldn't it be preferable if there could be a way for them to still make money while not keeping control over content? Wouldn't that be the ideal middle ground? Copy and share all you want, and they still get paid? Why the heck aren't they researching ways to do this? Simply put, because their current business model makes money for them, and they don't give a crap what the consumer thinks about it. That is what we mean when we say "outdated business model" and "thinking of a new one".
He should be thankful that they didn't install the software on a timex synclair or a Vic-20 or a TRS-80 Color Computer 2A with 64K or Ram for that added extra slowness!
nsmikeAug 25, 2007
Pfft. Uncultured swines burying me.
Closed AccountAug 25, 2007
"Those digital files you're sharing? Those are someones property."Can something intangible and infinitely copyable at zero marginal cost really be property? I don't believe so, but the opinions vary widely. For the government to take one stance or another on a non-proven matter is silly."So it costs you money. When you take it without paying the money, it's stealing."No, it isn't. Stealing is the act of taking something without the owner's permission and having them lose that thing as a result. Walk into a store and grab something off the shelf, that's theft because the store loses that item - they cannot sell that item anymore because now YOU have it. When copying, they do NOT lose the item in question - they just continue selling copies of the -same exact thing- at zero additional manufacturing cost beyond the obvious cost of boxing, media, etc. - if it is distributed over the internet, at zero marginal cost whatsoever."Do you think these people should not get paid for what they do? Do you think no one should pay for it? Or maybe just some people, but not others?"I definitely believe they deserve to get paid. He pointed out that their business model is outdated. There are ways to make money which embrace the most amazing attribute of intangible media - infinite free copying. For one method that applies to music, please see my comments history, about a year ago."Wake up. Piracy isn't right, or righteous. It's illegal. I do it too, and ***** me blind if I don't hate the RIAA and the MPAA, but terrorism? Do they really terrify you? No. They set an example to prevent illegal activity."Come on, now - you're smart. You can go beyond thinking of things as black and white - legal good, illegal bad, end of story. Something that is legal is not necessarily right, and something that is illegal is not necessarily wrong. "This is illegal, so it must be EVIL!" simple isn't the case."There needs to be control over content, that's how America runs - on money."Yes, but wouldn't it be preferable if there could be a way for them to still make money while not keeping control over content? Wouldn't that be the ideal middle ground? Copy and share all you want, and they still get paid? Why the heck aren't they researching ways to do this? Simply put, because their current business model makes money for them, and they don't give a crap what the consumer thinks about it. That is what we mean when we say "outdated business model" and "thinking of a new one".
nsmikeAug 25, 2007
*Sigh*Shylock was forced to renounce Judaism. This dude is forced to renounce Linux.
staticneuronAug 27, 2007
It's not storage it's copy protection..... uh wait... it isn't relevant here either is it?
thedreaming1Aug 28, 2007
He should be thankful that they didn't install the software on a timex synclair or a Vic-20 or a TRS-80 Color Computer 2A with 64K or Ram for that added extra slowness!