File-Sharing: Has it affected the RPG industry?

[James Heard]

I guess the still unanswered question is how one goes from there to a rationalization of theft; with the very clear side effect of putting Hasbro employees out on the street and drying up Hasbro's profits, from whence charitable contributions come.

I'm certain that it's similar to the rationalization process that leads someone to willfully violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in an act of vigilantism.

 

[jasper]

Quick thoughts
Global Economy Yes but not Global law as the gentleman from Finland has stated. He can download Shrek 2 in Finland and he is a Okay guy but if he does in LA Califor I A he is a thief.

Stealing Ideas. lets change from a NICHE hobby to some true gp. Jasper is a worker in the international Solar Battery Corp own by Robert A Heinlien. He completes his report on Ship stones and posts into a pdf on the company intradept web page. Along comes Kalyanyr who has access to their intradept web page because web master PirateCat has not block outsite IP. So Kalanyr builds a couple of shipstones (improved solar battieris) and puts him in his basement. Tells the power company he is not paying his power bill and wants them to cut down his power line and lock his meter. He enjoys free ac and tv and electricity and slowly pays off Southern Power until they remove the bad mark on his credit rating but does not allow Southern Power to rehook up him to their power grid. After all he has not hurt any one. Who has he stolen from after all he spend $1000 on is Discover card to get his materials, He spend 6 hours learn how to solder and weld. And He spend 40 hours moving his D&D collection out of his basement to hold the shipstones. Who has he STOLEN from.

Hey I have stolen from grocery stores. I firgure out the pass code to the free copy the zerox the machine at school. I admit I am a thief in the U.S.A. Those with full PDF, .doc, word pad, etc FULL COPIES of copyright material are thieves. IF your country aka FINLAND and other don't match the U.S.A. laws but you have copies of U.S.A product your are a legal user but unethical thief.

with all this bs I am remind of Patrick Duffy one of my high school classmates who proclaim some star ripped off some of lyrics. I never discover if he even when to court on the case.

And your point? Arguably, if enough people choose file sharing over purchase, the point will be moot because there will no longer be a physical copy to purchase. The more people that do so guilt-free, the more the idea spreads... from phork
But a Physical copy does EXIST in the hard drive of your machine. You ARE taking up space on your hard drive /what other media you use. and that media does have a cost, a price, and a physical existance. Now Granted you can pack the complete works of Shake of His Spear on one Cd where it takes a six inch printed version

Kalanyr I really don't care if you cut the corner of my lawn and pass under the stop sign (city property) but when you stomp on my wife tulip bed when doing so. You ARE doing damage. Now the question is will Mr. Kalayany be a good citizen and apolized to MS. Jasper and go to Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart and buy a bag o Tulip bulbs Or start saying things which will get Eric Grandmother upset and cause Jasper to get his shot gun. Wrong it is a rational arguement with the attrachet nusicnce laws (hey PirateCat has a swimming pool and trampolie so he is responsible when Taylor trailor park trash sneaks into his pool and drowns because he didn't know how to swim)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Can you point to me some figures showing that big corps, on average, give a larger percentage of either their profits or their sales to charities, than do small businesses?

By and large, they do not. They do, however, contribute more in ABSOLUTE sums than small businesses. Economies of scale allow things like that to happen.

Business 1 is a megacorp operating on a 2% profit margin. They can contribute $100's of M's of money to charities and not even feel the pinch. Even in an economic downturn that sucks up their profit margin, the megacorp will still be floated enough credit to survive, even while continuing to make those charitable donations and operating at a loss. Even absent credit floats, the megacorp can sell off portions of itself- real property, physical plant, layoffs, etc, to raise cash to keep afloat while still making charitable donations in order to maintain its public goodwill (a VERY valuable commodity).

Business 2 is a small business operating on a 2% profit margin. They may only be able to contribute a couple of hundred dollars a year to charities. Any economic downturn is a potential extinction level event that will result in all optional expenditures ending immediately, including charitable donations. If your only employees are your wife and your son, and your only real property is the store itself, you don't have many options.

The question becomes, what do you do about an unjust law? In this specific case, i see distinct shades of meaning and behavior, so that some violations of the law are moral, while others are not.

The classic example of this is the struggle for civil rights equality of blacks in the USA. There, people were denied equal protection under the law.

In the case of theft of IP, this is not true. ANYONE who creates IP is protected equally. They have the right to try to make a profit from their IP. This allows someone to rationally undertake the research to create a new drug, or spend their retirement savings trying to write the next great novel because they know that if they succeed, their rights to attempt to profit from their efforts are protected.

My argument isn't "because i don't like the victim", but, rather, "because the victim is somehow different and undeserving of protection of this sort".

A distinction without a difference. If the victim is somehow "different and undeserving of protection," then the victim obviously has qualities you don't like. If you can rationalize non-enforcement on such grounds rather than on the facts of the case, the law has no legitimacy, no power. Arbitrary laws or arbitrary enforcement erode the fabric of society. Such erosion can be serious or minor, but it is erosion just the same.

For example, if we don't protect the right of the KKK to have parades and espouse their message of hate because we find them disgusting, then EVERYONE's rights of free assembly and free speech are in jeaopardy because they exist only at the whim of the persons in power and law enforcement.

Similarly, if IP owned by a corporation is not protected the same as a human's IP, or IP owned by the rich is not protected the same as IP owned by the poor, your IP protection rules are arbitrary and cannot be relied upon for future planning.

I have clients who are constantly in fear of having their IP stolen, so they hold onto their music with a deathgrip. They won't play their demos for anyone, even for focus groups, so valuable feedback and other opportunities are lost-those guys will NEVER make it.

But I understand their fears. It is possible to get a perfect digital recording at someone's demo listening and have that song copied by another artist within days. Once this happens, the legitimate creator may be unable to do anything, especially an unsigned or undiscovered artist. Release their version-get labeled a derivative copycat; sue (if they can afford it)-risk ridicule and possible blackballing within the industry.

Back to the topic at hand. You seem to see corporations and people as being very similar, or at least fear that society at large sees them as very similar.

Nope-only insofar as they are treated as persons under certain laws. A corp can't murder someone, but it can be guilty of negligence that results in deaths.

In the eyes of the law, property crimes are property crimes, regardless of the victim

 

[James Heard]

In the case of theft of IP, this is not true. ANYONE who creates IP is protected equally. They have the right to try to make a profit from their IP. This allows someone to rationally undertake the research to create a new drug, or spend their retirement savings trying to write the next great novel because they know that if they succeed, their rights to attempt to profit from their efforts are protected.

I don't know if this is optimistic or if you're being sarcastic or what. IP is being UNEQUALLY protected, that's the RIAA issue in a nutshell. What else would you call a lawsuit of billions of dollars where the same amount of material actually physically stolen from a warehouse might only land damages in the tens of thousands of dollars in the insurance settlement. Then you've got those same people sending out lawyers like mafiosa armed with subpoenas and lobbying efforts instead of bats and horse heads. That's not equal, that's not even close. They've got no more equal protection than my crackhead white trash neighbors do in domestic suits compared to OJ Simpson. Except that in the case of Big IP, the government is complicit in supporting the activities. It's a wonder that there aren't actual physical turf wars involving guns.

 

[Lazybones]

James H sort of beat me to the punch, but I wanted to address that same quote. IP law does not provide for equal opportunity; in fact, the monopolies in the IP distribution industries (book publishing, music, radio, movies) are such that it is extremely difficult for new talent to break in (not impossible, but very difficult). I know something of the publishing industry, as I've published some NF articles while I was in grad school and have tried to sell various novels over the years. Salon had a great article about the marginalization of the mid-range author, and the cutthroat nature of publishing today; I'd link but I believe that the article is in their subscription section.

I personally don't think that removing copyright from corporate control would be a bad thing. Here's what I'd do, if it were up to me:

1. Copyrights could only be held by individuals (or groups of individuals, on collaborative projects) and would be non-transferable. Individuals could contract with corporations to distribute their material, but the ultimate rights would reside with the individual.

2. Initial copyright would be automatic and would have a term of 10 years. After 10 years, you could apply for a 10 year extension for a fee of $100. After those ten years are up, you could get another 10 year extension for a fee of $1000. Finally, you could get one last extension for $10000. After 40 years the item automatically reverts to the public domain.

3. The penalties for the illegal distribution of copyrighted material would be a fine of up ten times the cost of sale of the physical version of that product. I'm still working out in my mind if that would be a liability capturable via private civil suit, or a fine imposed and collected by the Copyright Office (1/2 to go to the owner of the copyright, 1/2 to go to the CO for its operations).

(okay, #4 is my "down the road/wish list item, take it as such)

4. Upon reversion of the item into the public domain, the Copyright Office would pay the Library of Congress to digitize the content (if not already digital) and place it upon a central public server for Web access. This would be financed by the copyright fees noted above, and, if needed, by a 1 cent tax upon the sale of copyrighted material. Materials too large and/or unwieldy for digitization/Web storage (such as a DVD movie) could be archived according to the usual means currently used by LoC and made freely available to the public for the cost of copying/mailing it. Anyone could take such items and host them themselves, of course. Perhaps the CO/LoC could establish a network of servers (at universities, etc.) who could host items that the LoC server would not be able to directly support.

 

[isidorus]

Interuppting your regularly schedule program

Interesting conversation, beeen reading the whole thread. I thought I would through this out, since it came up on slashdot just a little while ago Slashdot on Pirate Act

An here is a artcile about on news.com, interesting that the RIAA is pushing for this.Pirate Act I would read the whole article since it is pretty interesting and relevant.

Do really need to give people a crimmanl record for copyright infringement?

Thought it may relevant to the discussions. I think things just became worse, since it seems the RIAA can sue the same people they already sued.


This is just going to have a trickle down effect. Sigh!

Back to the Regular schedule program

 

[Dr. Harry]

Who has he stolen from after all he spend $1000 on is Discover card to get his materials, He spend 6 hours learn how to solder and weld. And He spend 40 hours moving his D&D collection out of his basement to hold the shipstones. Who has he STOLEN from.

material that he built using the stolen plans. I consider it grossly simplistic to take the attitude that theft only occurs when a physical object is moved. The company is denied the profits that it is entitled to by law for selling the power source, if they choose to sell it. The fact that it took effort to steal the information and put it to use is meaningless.

Hey I have stolen from grocery stores. I firgure out the pass code to the free copy the zerox the machine at school. I admit I am a thief in the U.S.A.

With the incredibly thin profit margins that grocery stores must subsist on, you are bragging about stealing from those who can least afford to lose money.

How proud you must be.

I really don't care if you cut the corner of my lawn and pass under the stop sign (city property) but when you stomp on my wife tulip bed when doing so. You ARE doing damage.

But if you don't support the community and bless the things that someone else does wrong as long as it does not affect you, why should the rest of us jump to your defense when it is finally your ox that is gored?

It was difficult enough to work out what you meant in the remaining material so I just let it go.

 

[Dr. Harry]

James H sort of beat me to the punch, but I wanted to address that same quote. IP law does not provide for equal opportunity; in fact, the monopolies in the IP distribution industries (book publishing, music, radio, movies) are such that it is extremely difficult for new talent to break in (not impossible, but very difficult).

While I'm sure that Dannyalcatraz can/will answer this more completely and precisely than I can, Your post explicitely invoked the problems that I think that your poet and James Heard's both had.

Equal protection is not equal opportunity. IP that you create has the same legal protections that IP created by Disney or Hasbro has. Invoking those protections might well be more difficult if you cannot afford the initial financial costs to act in the same way that large corporations do, but in the eyes of the law, both forms of IP have the same rights, regardless of their source.

The word "monopoly" is a highly charged word, loaded with such negative connotations that when it is not used properly it makes the argument appear to be demagogery. It may be difficult to break into book publishing, music, movies, TV, but it is certainly not a monopoly.

It also occurs to me that it would be funny if the Parker Brothers subdivision of Hasbro attempted to copyright the word "monopoly".

 

[Kalanyr]

Re jasper:
(Sorry if I've missed your point but I find your posts fairly hard to read).

Ah but see downloading a pdf copy isn't stomping in the tulip bed (which is akin to going into the business and burning a copy without reading it), its more like making a perfect copy of the tulip and taking it home, you've lose exclusive right to the tulip you've paid for, yup, that is certainly unethical, my point is that its LESS unethical than digging up your tulip and taking it home with me (which is how I see theft). I think some people are completely missing my point I view downloading as unethical sure, what I disagree with is the notion that its WORSE than theft as the punishment the legal system meets out indicates, which is fricking ridiculous.

In other words I see theft as a crime in magnitude equal to Destroy a Copy + Download a Copy, to me the idea that Download a Copy is equal to or worse than doing both (or even just destroying the copy) is stupid and not at all moral its sophistication by people fisihing for money and moral high ground, people are more likely to come down on your side if you make the crime look bad.

 

[Kalanyr]

Hmm, I see I'm not the only one that is unsure of what jasper is saying, since Dr Harry things jasper seems to be for downloading and I think he's against.