I am not the defendant here, but I would show how your thinking is a bit unfair.
Lets see: When I buy an empty DVD, there is a hologram attached that say, I paid a licence fee to legally copy movies, music, etc. to it, since licencing music is done this way. When I needed a memory card for my camera, almost half of the price went to music industry, since I bought permission to copy music and movies. And this fee is attached to the storage devices we use for backups (at work) etc, since this way everyone in hungary is covered for copying for personal use.
The centralized licecing agency sends the money to publishers and foreign agencies so the authors can get their money.
Am I allowed to insist: that if I, or anyone else who pays these fees want to use the rights we paid for and use a bittorrent site to geta movie BUT people who don't pay for shouldn't take the work of others for free? (If I wouldn't consider these stuff as a waste of perfectly good disc space / bw)
And that the later is THEIR responsibility.
To make things complex, there is a reprography fee too, which is paid with all scanners, printers, supplies, etc. to give you permission to make personal copies of books (including ebooks) with any technology. Yes, even the printers that is never used for any books, and yes, for any not for profit copying by individuals.
Is it fair, if I say: I want to use this right, but expect that people who don't pay a cent (it should be sent to copyright owner) for such fees don't take books for free?
And to make things even more complex: if people need a demo group online and the books are shared so they can try to game they play that should be ok in my definition (imaking such copies is a good use of reprography fee), but it isn't good way to show support, help financing the future, so if you can spend money on RPG books you should even if you can have legal copies?
And that if I like a game I can walk to the store and buy it, since we don't pay a licence fee on anything that gives us an option to copy software (except for the backup copy).
I think if I would name a bittorrent client software, a bittorrent tracker software, etc. as my favorites these ideals wouldn't change.
Even if I would like 4e, would like it enough to run demo games, and this would get my copy in wrong hands (outside of people who pay a reprography fee) and many of them would be
s and wouldn't want to buy books the ideals would be same. The laws would be same as well.I think the laws are similar in most countries that had communism for some decades, since they are in essence old laws and there this "government appointed representative should licence all copyrighted works and sell their cut to copyright owner" approach was common. I heard some US based universities want something similar, since it is better for all.
But I think Poland is similar here. And if you look aafter Damador, he ran a lot of demo games, because he supports his hobby.
And when music industry started sueing people there, even major DC++ hubs were seen the court deciding, that is just personal copies made and shared, and covered by the fees you pay for (publishers said it wasn't copying but distributing, and this is why they thought it is illegal). Why would people from such countries be against filesharing? What should stop them from doing it?
BUT if you don't pay this fee and copy anything, then you are a criminal.
Visible watermarks aren't a "copy protection mechanism" if they have personally identifiable information, and you can delete it and you can request others to delete it. And if you give it to others they can try to protect you before uploading to anything public.
And often torrent, etc. sites have communities that can give you advice, lets you discuss stuff, even if you don't dl or ul anything. Why? Since if invites aren't that easy to get people don't want to lose their accounts (it isn't easy to make a new one) so it is easier to find intelligent conversation about a few topics on a few such sites.
What damador claimed? That in poland he pays a fee, and wotc and other publishers could claim their cut, that should allow him to make copies of books and share with friends and in polish communities, he did that, so he did nothing wrong.
The whole piracy issue is nasty, since in countries where you have to pay a lot of money for permission to copy music, books, videos, etc. people will do it, because if they pay for this privilegie (and it cannot be limited in contracts) they want to use it.
But once they put it up on a filesharing site for people who can copy it, people who don't pay for this permission will download it too, but they can't control this, and it would be hard to catch the people who "forgot to pay".
I hope, one day these differences will vanish, everyone will pay for a permission to copy, but people will still buy originals (like they do here) for collecting, supporting their favorites, because that helps to define their identity, because printed copies or services make it worth, etc. and both authors and end users will find it an excellent deal.
