PDFS--Of the WotC Court Case

[N0Man]

The legal one is not so tricky. We, the people, have chosen to live in a society where we elect a government to represent us. Then we give them the power to enact laws on our behalf. Those laws are.. well, laws... you obey them, or break them. Not liking a law because it makes something inconvenient for you is not an excuse to break it, or a means of mitigating your actions. If you don't like the law, work to change the law _legitimately_. Whether or not the law was actually broken will be determined by a court or peers, but if the law says you can't do "x", and you did "x", then you have broken the law.

While you had many interesting ideas in your post, there were a few problems with some of your arguments.

First of all, the intention of copyright is to allow the owner to have a monopoly on their work for a limited time. It was designed to prevent a competitor from profiting from your work. Copyright only became relevant in regards to consumers because of advances in technology.

Additionally, sneaking into a movie theater may be a crime, but that crime isn't copyright infringement.

Also, the part that I quoted, has 2 problems with it. First of all, the legal one is not so clear cut as you characterize it. Fair Use is very tricky, and sometimes it's hard to distinguish between infringement and fair use, and often the judgments aren't even consistent. Some of the scenarios that have been discussed are clearly infringement, however some of them are at least can be reasonably argued as fair use.

And finally, copyright infringement is a tort, not a criminal violation. It will not be determined by peers.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

While you had many interesting ideas in your post, there were a few problems with some of your arguments.

First of all, the intention of copyright is to allow the owner to have a monopoly on their work for a limited time. It was designed to prevent a competitor from profiting from your work. Copyright only became relevant in regards to consumers because of advances in technology.

Additionally, sneaking into a movie theater may be a crime, but that crime isn't copyright infringement.

Also, the part that I quoted, has 2 problems with it. First of all, the legal one is not so clear cut as you characterize it. Fair Use is very tricky, and sometimes it's hard to distinguish between infringement and fair use, and often the judgments aren't even consistent. Some of the scenarios that have been discussed are clearly infringement, however some of them are at least can be reasonably argued as fair use.

And finally, copyright infringement is a tort, not a criminal violation. It will not be determined by peers.

look it is a crime...aka illegal you are advacating illegal action...please discuss this elsewhere this thread is about WotC sueing people some of us want to read the news and do NOT want to be bombarded with your or anyone else politcal reteric...and make no mistake this is not what the thread was about...

 

[N0Man]

Noman, crino, everyone else...

if you want to support or not support illegal activity, please fork this...I am outraged at this thread...I have been trying to keep up on the news of the lawsuit...however I am being beaten over the head with your moral arguments...

remember drug dealers and drug users are victumless crimes, so is prostitution. I am sure there are other examples...but point blank I am sick of this. I am not trying to get myself booted from this thread (As I have before when these topics come up) but I do feel it is boarder line harressment for you guys to force a topic of it's rails to support your politcal agenda (Piracy is OK)...if you fork I will leave you alone, but right now you are intrudein on an informational thread...please fork it already it is 1 button away from quote...

Fair enough. It was never my intention to derail the thread, and my apologies for inadvertently doing so. However, I'm not "supporting" piracy here either, and the absolute assertion that it's always illegal is a characterization that is part of this big debate as well... so if you don't want the debate then I suggest you refrain from making loaded statements yourself.

My original intent was merely to point out, in regards to this case, that the argued assumption that the ratio of downloads to sales lost is *not* 1:1.

Perhaps it would have been better to fork to discuss that in retrospect, however I naively did not expect to stir up pages of debate or get caught up in it myself.

Honestly, I think I'd prefer to just end the debate and get back on topic here anyway. Again, sorry for contributing to the derailment.

 

[jgerman]

If one thinks they are being harmed, whether true or not they are going to react in such a way to lessen that harm. That's why it matters.

That's fine, but when it comes to the legal issues, which is what I understood to be the topic here, it doesn't matter.

If you have evidence that says file sharing is helpful to publishers then I'm sure there are lots of people that would love to see it.

No need to be facetious. You've not provided any evidence that it hurts publishers. You're begging the question.

Study: P2P effect on legal music sales "not statistically distinguishable from zero" - Ars Technica
http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_June2005_final.pdf
Government study proves illegal file sharing increases music sales - TECH.BLORGE.com
washingtonpost.com: Study: File-Sharing No Threat to Music Sales

Is that enough? There's plenty more. The fact is it's not clear that file sharing hurts publishers and there is evidence to the contrary.

I made the argument earlier. Whether or not WotC suffered loss as a result of file sharing has yet to be proven. They have suffered loss, however, from their actions to 'fight' it.

 

[Simon Atavax]

some of us want to read the news and do NOT want to be bombarded with your or anyone else politcal reteric...and make no mistake this is not what the thread was about...

Umm, are you new to the internet, dude?

 

[Cadfan]

If it can be shown that file sharing is not harming a content producer by the most common metric used (monetary gain or loss) then it shouldn't be illegal to do so.

But that's just the thing...

1. Its not just about whether specific instances of file sharing harm "content producers" (not a fan of this buzzword). Its about whether a specific regime of copyright law enforcement or non enforcement is beneficial overall.

2. Given that we rarely have perfect knowledge about what copyright options best benefit society, content producers, or really anyone, the real question is who gets to make decisions about what harms who. If the test is whether a content producer is harmed, I think it is going to be quite difficult to argue that the content producer's views aren't the most likely ones to be correct. Its basically standard capitalist reasoning from here on out- a general rule of following the content producer's interests is likely to create outcomes most favorable to the content producer.

3. And to combine the two points, even if you can conclusively show that a specific content producer made the wrong call in a specific instance, that does NOT justify tossing out the entire rule of allowing content producers to make these decisions. You'd have to show that content producers, collectively, are less likely to make the right decisions than some other set of decision makers. If the metric is the benefit of the content producer, I think that's going to be nigh impossible.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Umm, are you new to the internet, dude?

no, but I am also not new to enworld...infact atleast once, I belive twice I have been baned from disccusions here about the morality and legality of fileshareing/pirateing...and I will tell you this seeing this type of moral decay on this site where people not only admit to breaking laws, but try to defend themselves with BS 'no one got hurt' is the worst thing I can immagin...

again if you think it should be legal go tell your congressmen/senators...if you want to brag go to a pirate web site...don't slam your ploitcal and legal views on others...becuse I am a hairs breath from pounding back...I am sick of this...you even have options...and lets not forget this BS got the whole topic put in it's own area for a while...

just fork it befor you piss the rest of us off...it isn't hard I am not asking that much...just go to another thread...it is why we have the fork buttoin for god sake...

 

[tomBitonti]

Text omitted ...

A man creates an idea. Rules to a game. He put his labour in to it, and the result was an idea that _he_ created. He decides it might have value to others. He needs a way to deliver that valuable idea to others, so he uses symbols to record the idea on pages in a physical book. Now we have the internet, and the idea can be disseminated without the need for a physical book, but the idea was still his. He put his labour into it, so it is his to sell, or not.

Text omitted ...

There is an point there that I think may be disputed, or at least clarified, and that gets at one of the points of Copyright law.

The statement "A man creates an idea" is too strong. The nature of civilization, and of discourse, makes it very hard to have a completely new idea. Ideas are framed in a language that has thousands of years of development, and in terms of many many other ideas. What is due to society for the value of language and common discourse from which the idea sprang?

I thought that what was at the heart of copyright law was a compromise between allowing ideas to be freely used, so to not stifle the creation of new ideas, and between allowing control over the expression of the idea, so to promote the creation of new ideas. Too much control, and the creation of new ideas gets to be too hard. Too little control, and the incentive to create new ideas gets to be too small.

Also, care must be taken when discussing "ideas" and "expressions of ideas". A young boy goes to school for magical traning and fights an evil wizard. That is an idea. Harry Potter going to Hogworts and fights Voldemort is an expression of that idea.

 

[Dannager]

no, but I am also not new to enworld...infact atleast once, I belive twice I have been baned from disccusions here about the morality and legality of fileshareing/pirateing...and I will tell you this seeing this type of moral decay on this site where people not only admit to breaking laws, but try to defend themselves with BS 'no one got hurt' is the worst thing I can immagin...

again if you think it should be legal go tell your congressmen/senators...if you want to brag go to a pirate web site...don't slam your ploitcal and legal views on others...becuse I am a hairs breath from pounding back...I am sick of this...you even have options...and lets not forget this BS got the whole topic put in it's own area for a while...

just fork it befor you piss the rest of us off...it isn't hard I am not asking that much...just go to another thread...it is why we have the fork buttoin for god sake...

You are espousing your own moral beliefs in a manner far more egregious than anyone else here has so far.

It is clear that this is an issue that you react emotionally to. I strongly suggest not posting at all in such threads, if your wish is truly to avoid exacerbating the situation. Making use of emotional and radicalized language is not going to move the thread back on topic.

If you feel that you can post in such threads without making use of language that fuels the flames you want to put out, then please do so with caution. You do not want a repeat of the above post.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You are espousing your own moral beliefs in a manner far more egregious than anyone else here has so far.

oh trust me I am...but you know what I am asking to stop it...

It is clear that this is an issue that you react emotionally to.

more so then most know...this is a BIG hot button topic for me

I strongly suggest not posting at all in such threads, if your wish is truly to avoid exacerbating the situation.

here is the problem I am very intrested in the lawsuit...and have been following and discussing it the whole way without moral judgments (On the board anyway) then it gets thrown in my face in the middle of a thread and...to be honnest I am seeing red..

Making use of emotional and radicalized language is not going to move the thread back on topic.

but doing everything short of BEGGING for people to fork it might...again fine if you want to talk about, leave those of use who don't in peace...

If you feel that you can post in such threads without making use of language that fuels the flames you want to put out, then please do so with caution. You do not want a repeat of the above post.

why??
If I am being forcefeed others opionons about the moral part of pirateing, or how it is a victumless crime (OH boy does that set me off big time) or how commiting this crime helps the people who claim to be hurt by it (AKA PUTING THE VICTOM ON TRAIL) then why should I tone it down???

again if you don't want my very nast nd snarky responces to your off topic points then fork the damn thread...


edit: here is my most recent post here since it got brought back to the front page, but before the "I pirate but do no harm" and "It helps not hurts" and "People who protect there stuff suck" stared:

um...who agrees to $100,000 ?? I mean really that is more then I make in 2 years...

is this guy loaded? I can see the court handing down something like this, but why not negotiate down to a more resnable number???

want to tell me I am starting or makeing things worse there??? I bet not I was in the middle of an honnest discussion whn it got hijacked into something that I feel strongly and negativly about...infact something that riles me up...

I am not even saying don't talk about it...but don't make me sift through 3+ pages of this BS trying to get back to the damn point of the post...the lawsuits...

this thread is calledDFS--Of the WotC Court Case NOt "How like piracy" or "Why piracy should be legal" or "Why anti piracy is bad"....go start your own thread, or fork this one...leave those of us who want updates alone...please...


in fact is that what this will take begging you to fork or stop this discussion??????????