Cergorach said:
Well, it's all nice and stuff, sticking up for what you believe in. But Moberon wasn't sure in the first place if he should do it or not. If your not sure you want to proceed with 'sueing', you shouldn't do it, to much risk. Both financially and mentaly. Talking big from the sidelines is all nifty and stuff, but your not in his shoes, so don't go giving him advice that has an equal chance to backfire.
He wanted to hear from all parties involved. And you're obviously biased in your views on copyright being "wrong".
Counterfeiting is very harmful to society, 'piracy' isn't as harmful as counterfeiting (at least it isn't proven). Comparing 'piracy' to any other crime does the other crime a disservice, and often makes 'piracy' look more 'evil' than it really is.
By that definition, Piracy is the weakest of all crimes. I'm sorry, I don't agree. Counterfeiting is a crime because it weakens the economic system, and so does piracy.
If you annoy the wrong person you might find your self sued for harasment. Even if you have the right person you still have to prove it, and chances are that you can't. If organisations like RIAA have problems getting offender info, how the heck do you expect a first time pdf publisher to pull it off?
That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to find out who stole what. The technology to trace pirates is improving. I have a feeling that soon all computer activity will become traceable in the next 10 years or so.
If you actually annoy the right person, you might be in worse trouble than before. The things people can do to to a companies website aren't pretty, etc.
Well, if we were all afraid of reprisals, people would be afraid to testify against gangsters, and we'd give in to every terrorist demand out there. That's not a reason not to pursue prosecution.
If, against all odds, you do get the right person and sue them in oblivion, you'll have one less customer. I will absolutely not endorse companies that sue people into oblivion (and ruin the rest of their lives), just because they didn't follow the copyright laws. Punishment yes, but punishment relative to the 'crime', rapists get less trouble than copyright offenders.
While there are problems with crimes, I do think that the only way we will stop piracy is to make harsh penalties against it. The only way to get people to obey the law is to have serious consequences to those who breaking it. Note that I am talking about people who knowing and willingly flaunt it. But if people end up paying economic penalties for this, people will learn to be on their best behavior.
You know the saying "When a billion people say a stupid thing, it's still a stupid thing."? Actually that isn't true, wheter something is stupid or 'Evil' is decided by societies concensus.
Moral Relativism is the first sign of a society's collapse.
What will happen if IP laws are loosened? Our economic system will start collapsing. Economic evolution goes from Argiculture, to Industrial, and then to Information / Entertainment. That last part is why in the last several years IP laws have become more restrictive. IMO, if this effort reaches a critical mass, all of us will be out of a job as the cheapest countries take over and we are relegated to becoming a service economy.
I do not want our system to become over-exploitive--pay per view books, for instance--but I do not think that this means reversing prudent legislation.
Stealing bread for your little brothers and sisters that go hungry at night is still illegal, but not many people would call it wrong. It's a matter of perception...
And nobody starves if they can't get their D&D supplements or DVDs, but the person who works hard on it does suffers if they can't make money on it because 90% of the audience downloaded it for free.
