1/4 million dollar fine for bootlegging d+d books?

[The Sigil]

]The international application of the law is suspect. Take, for instance, Canada - in Canada all recordable media currently has an additional tax placed upon it. There is a proposal to extend this tax to the sale of things like printers, toner, hard drives, mp3 players etc (the tax itself is about $1.00 per disk, or the proposed $10.00 for hardware). The revenue from these taxes are collected in a special fund to defray the loss incurred by the various media conglomerates. The amount was mutually agreed up on by all parties, meaning the RIAA and such agreed to these numbers.

It's worth pointing out that such a "tax" on blank CDs, videotapes, and cassette tapes exists in the US as well.

The big-time content companies are trying to have it both ways... "you must pay us for the ability to copy our stuff" ("use tax" on blank media) and "you can't copy our stuff" (Digital Rights Management, DMCA, draconian copyright laws) at the same time.

Which really annoys me, as it means that they're double-dipping... in fact, I recall one US Congressman asking the *AA something to the effect of, "wait a minute, you want us to make a law saying that DRM must be built into computers so people CAN'T copy your stuff... and you're already charging them to pay for the 'ability to copy' on the blank media that they buy? So you are, in effect, asking us to support legislation to force people to pay for an ability that won't exist?"

An analogy fails me... it's like, I guess, a host at a party/bar/club charging everyone a $5 "soft drink cover charge" at the door... and then making no drinks of any kind available to anyone.

No answer yet from the *AA.

The *AA is basically a buggy-whip maker that has shown it does not want to adapt to the digital age of instant content delivery sans middleman (since the *AA is the middleman). I believe they will be gone in 15 years, but that they'll raise holy hell on their way out and make life exceedingly miserable for the rest of us.

--The Sigil

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

This doesn't happen often, but I 100% agree with The Sigil on this matter.

Copyright was originally intended to protect *artists.* It wasn't designed to protect multinational conglomerates who exploit said artists. It certainly wasn't designed so that Mickey Mouse could stay out of the public domain for the next seven hundred years.

 

[The Sigil]

This doesn't happen often, but I 100% agree with The Sigil on this matter.

Copyright was originally intended to protect *artists.* It wasn't designed to protect multinational conglomerates who exploit said artists. It certainly wasn't designed so that Mickey Mouse could stay out of the public domain for the next seven hundred years.

Funny thought...

In 1,000 years, I'm going to be famous! I'll be quoted in all the history books!

Why?

In the year 3,000 historians are going to want to write about the last turn of the millenium... and because copyright laws have been extended so many times, Steamboat Willie will STILL be under copyright. In fact, everything ever written by anyone anytime anywhere since about 1923 will still be in copyright. And of course, the original copyright holders will be long dead, and tracing the rightful copyright holder (the "heir") will be literally impossible.

And of course, these historians will find my writings and pictures... all of which were placed into the public domain - and these will be the only things they can quote without paying several million times the annual GNP to AOLTimeWarnerCNNTurnerDisneyClearChannel.



Thus, every child will read my words and look at my pictures in their history books... because everyone else (read: corporations) was too busy worrying that,

"Somewhere, someone, somehow might manage to make a buck off of this... and I won't get a cut."

--The Sigil

 

[Nightfall]

<Sarcasm>
This is going to be great! Once music piracy via the internet is dead, I can go back to letting MTV and Clearchannel decide what I like to listen to for me.
</Sarcasm>

Yeah well welcome to RIAA's wet dream. Along with the multi-national media corps running things...Now people can understand why some times I wish for Armaggedon. At least then, there would be a few less lawyers, CEOs, and buracrats around.

 

[Creamsteak]

All I can think about is: In 7 years, I'm going to be able to prosecute these cases. That is a lot of money in my future as well... not just the music industries...

I did a paper on Electronic Piracy a little while ago. The citations are wrong, but it does have a little bit of useful information.

 

[2d6]

Yeah well welcome to RIAA's wet dream. Along with the multi-national media corps running things...Now people can understand why some times I wish for Armaggedon. At least then, there would be a few less lawyers, CEOs, and buracrats around.

I wouldn't get too worked up yet. This is just early fund-raising.

 

[Zappo]

Year 3000? You made me remember I have something to link about copyrights.

http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm

[attempt to look on topic]Could make for an interesting Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 game... one of the players is a rocker, and it turns out that a new bill would... ah, well, I won't spoil the novel, read the link.[/attempt to look on topic]

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Several great points, Sigil.

It's like the wird statisitcs they get out with blank CD's: X blanks were sold, so we sold X games less than we could. With every game costing 50 bucks, that's 50 * X bucks we lost. (Of course, that's just an excuse for raising the prices even more, and they're way beyond even now.) They won't mention that many of those blanks are used to archive stuff, to create photo-CD's, to create legal backups, (and that many programs and games won't fit on a single CD). They also "forget" the little fact that people who get an illegal copy wouldn't necessarily get the original, too.

Also, they don't really encourage people buying originals: The stuff gets ever more expensive and has less gimmiks. What they have to do is lower the prices and provide a little more content, and those who would buy if they could afford will buy again (I'm to happy that I rarely game these days.)

A good example of how you have to do it is the newest Metallica Album. If you grab the limited Digipack, you get a free DVD with rehearsal footage - the whole album on DVD, without paying a cent more. But I digress.

 

[BOZ]

guess i better finish up my music collection before the only files you can share are movies that eric's grandma doesn't want you to see.

 

[jasamcarl]

The fine is reasonable if you think of it as an expected fine. I.E. the probability of getting caught on any average download * the actual restitution that would have to be made.