Torrent throwdown on the Wizards board

[robertliguori]

How do you propose we decide which poor sucker gets stuck with the bill?

History shows that when everyone gets the benefit but only some do the work, eventually, the hard workers catch on that they're being scammed, and stop working so hard. This is why communism, whether on the large scale of the USSR or the small scale of hippie communes, collapses. This is why kibbutzes have gone toward market systems.

So a system based on some people paying while the majority doesn't will sputter along for a while, based on inertia, but one by one, the payers decide that they're tired of supporting the non-payers and drop out, or, more often, decide "I've paid enough -- someone else's turn!" and become non-payers. Then the pressure on the remaining payers increase, so they're more likely to drop out, and the cycle collapses.

We are in the VERY early part of the cycle -- there's still dupes out there who feel like they're being noble and heroic when they support an artist, even though others just take the work for free. They feel, "Hey, I'll pay for this book now, and someone else will pay for the next book, the writer makes enough to live off, and everyone's happy!" But with each iteration, more leech and fewer pay. The writer has less time to write because he needs to earn money from other projects. The people who supported him feel disgruntled because they were buying, in part, his future productivity. So with less promise of more material to come, they are less likely to pay for what IS produced, and, also, when there's a lot of existing material, people newly aware of the artists are more likely to consume what's already out there for "free" instead of paying for the new material when it's released.

Look at early factory productivity in the USSR, or the way kibbutzes worked in the first generation of Israel's existence, or the way most communes and utopian communities in America started (and this goes back to the 19th century, the hippies were followers and copycats). Then look at how they worked a decade, two decades, a generation later. Same pattern, over and over. We're in a real "up" part of the "free" content cycle. The crash is coming.

Yes, but what are we crashing into? The ironic thing is that the same distribution network that lets you distribute content for basically-free lets artists who create for the joy of creation distribute content just as cheaply freely. You may no longer be able to make a living writing RPG products, but it is not as though there is a dearth of people perfectly willing to do so of their own free will, and put them out for public use.

See, the problem with worrying about the harm caused by widespread piracy and copying is that there is, from a legal perspective, pretty much jack-all you can do about it. Given the technical and legal realities of the world, it is a fact that if an electronic is popular, it will be scanned, uploaded, and shared (with a briefly-noticeable squeak as whatever attempt at content protection is blasted away like a stick of butter in a Sahara sandstorm).

So, either change the laws to enforce copyright more stringently, change technology so that works cannot be copied and distributed (good luck with that), or adapt to the reality that there will be freely-available shared X.

Finally, I'd like to bring up the case of iTunes. 99% of iTune's product is available for free online; only the most cursory technical knowledge is needed to find free music online. Despite this, iTunes remains in business, and even turns a profit. This is because iTunes is competitive with the various forms of sharing music illegally for free; it is legitimate, convenient, and provides product in a form that people want. The aforementioned physical and legal realities do not preclude you from turning a profit from the creative sweat of your brow; they just mean that you might not be able to do it the same way you could fifteen or twenty years ago.

 

[DerekSTheRed]

No, I'm saying that I wouldn't illegally download something, decide NOT to purchase the product, but then continue to use the illegal copy anyway.

It doesn't have anything to do with a big company or small company. As a moral and responsible person, I will financially support the hobbies that I enjoy. But the act of ALSO looking at a copy of said material is not itself immoral.

Distributing material beyond fair use may be immoral. Using material without financially supporting it's creation/distribution may be immoral. But simply accessing that material, without payment, is not immoral by any means... for if it were, then we would live in a dangerous world.

My argument is based on a moral system of patronage, rather than an absolute system of pay-for-knowledge.

That's a much more interesting argument then what you said previously. I personally don't have a lot of faith in people to morally patronize a piece of IP that they use. I know there are examples of this like Radiohead's new album. I see these as exceptions to the rule. People like free stuff and if given the choice will take things for free. Getting donations out of most people generally requires some sort of guilt trip.

Derek

 

[Argyuile]

Finally, I'd like to bring up the case of iTunes. 99% of iTune's product is available for free online; only the most cursory technical knowledge is needed to find free music online. Despite this, iTunes remains in business, and even turns a profit. This is because iTunes is competitive with the various forms of sharing music illegally for free; it is legitimate, convenient, and provides product in a form that people want. The aforementioned physical and legal realities do not preclude you from turning a profit from the creative sweat of your brow; they just mean that you might not be able to do it the same way you could fifteen or twenty years ago.

I completely agree and raise you a Robert A Heinlein Quote

"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit."

 

[JohnSnow]

i don't have time to read this whole thread at the moment, but its a very interesting read so far.

To make the issue of digital ownership more fuzzy, how many of you here that venomously against piracy have ever used an avatar that you did not create (and i don't just mean you copped the image or added text)

Just to pick on someone i know heavily against piracy, JohnSnow, did you ask newline cinema or Viggo Mortensen for use of that image? do you think that you should pay a fine and are you comfortable in doing so?

My avatar, I made from scratch. I did not steal anyone else's intellectual property to give myself an online identity.

Hopefully you understand my point John. Also apologies if I upset you by using you as an example.

I'm just trying to show the issue is not black and white, or at least i don't see it that way. I don't know where i stand on the issue. Both sides have very good and relevant points.

No worries, I'm not the least bit upset.

To answer your question, if New Line Cinema chose to charge for the use of this image, I think they'd have the right. I would then have the right to decide whether or not to continue my use of the image. However, there's two possible arguments here:

1) I'm using a still image from one instant of a 3 hour movie. To call this "0.1% of the product" would be generous. Hence, if I own the movie (which I do, in multiple copies), using this image constitutes "fair use."

2) To some degree, said "extraction" is marketing (basically product placement) that actually helps the company. Hence, it's still "fair use."

There's a parody strip called "Bored of the Rings" that makes use of a lot more still images from New Line's films than my teeny little avatar does. And, since they don't profit from it, that's still considered "fair use."

Obviously, whenever someone makes money, it changes things a lot. However, there is still a threshold, even if nobody is profiting from it, where you have clearly transcended "fair use." Posting the entire movie online for anyone to download for free would certainly qualify.

But, by the same token, 1000 people colluding to get the entire text of 4e online by each posting one page is still not "fair use." By distributing copyrighted material over the internet, in my opinion, you have transcended "fair use" whether you profit by it or not.

(There's a "quality" argument too - that allows something like YouTube to skate 'cuz it's low-res. I don't know if it's got much of a leg to stand on legally, though.)

 

[Thasmodious]

That's an interesting opinion that some people might share with you, but it lacks any sort of substantiation. The use of "enslave" here is amusing hyperbole that might score points in some circles, but it does you a disservice in the view of a skeptic. You're entitled to your opinions, but your claims about facts need support that you just aren't providing

The proof is entirely in the pudding, so to speak.

That's an out-and-out lie that shows complete ignorance of the subject of copyrights and property rights.

Your failure to grasp the point does not constitute dishonesty on my end.

Creators are the initial owners of property. Since it is their property they can sell it, rent it, trade it, gift it, or lease it to other parties.

And if they ever want to make a profit from it, they have little choice but to sell it, and their rights, off to some corporation for meager restitution. And just because some rock band sees a lot more money than you do doesn't mean the restitution isn't meager. The important ration isn't how much they make compared to a cashier but how much they make compared to how much the company makes off their work.

If you invalidate their right to exchange their exclusive rights to some other desired good, service, or currency you've deprived them of their right to property and damaged the value of that property by making it less liquid.

I disagree that 'right to property' is a fundamental or necessary right at all.

That's another outright lie. Sometimes it is profitable to choose to do so. Sometimes it is not. Some of us hire a printing vendor and develop our own distribution network or utilize an existing network for a fee.

Refer to my previous comment about your accusations towards my honesty. Just because you are incapable of understanding the ideas you are reading doesn't constitute any fault on my end.

Self distribution or small partnership distribution is a wonderful thing. Its part of the information revolution and something I am fully on board with.

No. THAT paradigm is actually far more comparable to slavery than your earlier, misguided claims. What you are proposing is that a man's work be taken from him without compensation because you feel entitled to it.

No, that is not what I am proposing at all. But if you really want to argue that point, go argue with constitutional law, which makes (well, originally, until corporations lobbied until they got their way) patents, trademarks, copyrights all things that expire. Because people have a right to seek profit, but society also has a right to enjoy innovation and information and progress from it. It is, after all, the existence of that society that allowed for such innovations or labor to occur at all in the first place.

At least the "evil distribution companies" have to pay a man for his work and a man is free to elect to not do business with them. You simply want to take his labor from him whenever you please. You are the slaver here.

Keep sticking your gross (or is it willful) misunderstanding of my position here. It's working great for you!

When a creator watches his works being pinched by a bunch of bums under the guise of "socialism" or "freedom of information," he's being robbed.

Sad, another mind shackled and subdued by generations of propaganda and manipulation by the Owner Caste.

I'm sorry but Kant and Plato would disagree with you, and they've got far better credentials.

I have a degree in philosophy, does Plato?

No he doesn't. And he has over 2000 years of philosophers and intellectuals trashing his positions and viewpoints on objective morality. Hint: its only true if there is an objectively moral force at work in the universe - ie God. Since that can't be established, neither can an objective morality. Read some Nietzsche or Bertrand Russell and get back to me.

Moral consensus != Moral truth

Kant was also wrong. Important, but wrong. There is a reason why German Idealism is discussed in modern circles in the past tense.

 

[Darrin Drader]

My opinion is that making the content available when the publisher definitely does not want it to be so at a certain time is immoral. However, I feel that once the genie has been let out of the bottle, that item has just become public domain, whether the laws say it is or not. Should an end user feel bad for accessing that public domain? For me, that's where things get cloudy.

If a person has the books on pre-order and then they get a sneak peak at it, I don't consider it as bad as when a person had no intention of buying the books and then gets them for free. If the latter person then goes on to use the material and still does not buy the material, then I think that a moral line has been crossed.

In this case I would like to think that most people who are downloading the books are just taking an unauthorized sneak peak, but are still planning to buy them.

At any rate, someone on another messageboard pointed me to a location where the books could be downloaded. This wasn't a torrent site, but an actual download site where one click gets you everything in its entirety. I forwarded the links to WotC so they can try and get them taken down. The decision to honor copyright law was an easy one for me to make. I can wait another week and a half.

 

[Lizard]

It makes one wonder how sourceforge can exist at all since no one is being paid for their work.

Of the projects on sourceforge, how many are de facto abandoned? How many of those are because the project lead couldn't devote the time to both the project AND earning a living? (And what percentage of succesful projects ultimately gain a commercial angle, from support or documentation or what-not?)

IP is not a car, it is not the food grow or the clothes on your back.

But for many people, it's how they buy those things. If they can't buy these things by creating ideas, they will find other work.

Let's make it simple. I ask you to do work for me. I then decide not to pay you what I promised. When you complain, I say I've taken nothing from you but time and effort -- you still have all the phyiscal property you used to have, so shut up and stop whining. If you want to "get paid" for your "work", you have to think outside the box! Be creative! Don't bitch to me that I am "supposed" to pay you or that I "benefitted" from your work. This is a new age! Forget the old rules! Labor wants to be free -- especially YOUR labor for MY benefit.

What do you spend when you, say, clean up the junk in my backyard? Time and energy.

What does a writer spend when he creates? Time and energy.

Why do you deserve to get paid for physical labor and the writer not get paid for mental labor?

Copying IP is not going to lead to some type of collapse of society. The absolute worst that would happen would be stagnation.

That's pretty bad, IMO.

Even then, IP exits to promote innovation however, people innovated long before IP ever existed as a concept, so its not like no IP laws completely stop innovation. Its not like there was some cave man sitting around deciding not to invent the wheel because he didn't think he would get paid for his invention.

And do you think it is coincidence that the rate at which innovation increased coincided with the realization that ideas were property?

 

[warlockwannabe]

I disagree that 'right to property' is a fundamental or necessary right at all.

Refer to my previous comment about your accusations towards my honesty. Just because you are incapable of understanding the ideas you are reading doesn't constitute any fault on my end.

Self distribution or small partnership distribution is a wonderful thing. Its part of the information revolution and something I am fully on board with.

Keep sticking your gross (or is it willful) misunderstanding of my position here. It's working great for you!

Sad, another mind shackled and subdued by generations of propaganda and manipulation by the Owner Caste.

I have a degree in philosophy, does Plato?

No he doesn't. And he has over 2000 years of philosophers and intellectuals trashing his positions and viewpoints on objective morality. Hint: its only true if there is an objectively moral force at work in the universe - ie God. Since that can't be established, neither can an objective morality. Read some Nietzsche or Bertrand Russell and get back to me.

Kant was also wrong. Important, but wrong. There is a reason why German Idealism is discussed in modern circles in the past tense.

This is getting a bit personal no? And a bit paranoid. There are a few caste cultures in the world, but this isnt one of them. People may be wrong from your point of view, but in the end, just be civil. And when you are as well known as the above people then you cant say who is wrong or not

 

[Tervin]

A couple of years back I taught some computer classes for teenagers where issues with copyright, illegal downloading etc were an important part so I had to do a bit of reading up. I also learnt quite a bit from my students.

Just a few little things that I think are interesting:

Illegal downloading seems to hit different industries in very different ways. In the music business the big companies complain of losses, while many independents have benefited from the free marketing. Many claim that the business is healthier now than it ever was - myself I think that might have more to do with cheap technology and the Internet making it possible for many more people to spread their musec outside of the mainstream channels.

When it comes to film/dvd it is hard to draw any conclusions yet, but the dvd rental shops should be the first to lose business from the downloading. They are still around, even here in Piratebay's backyard. My guess is that the porn industry is losing money, or at least making a bit less than they would otherwise.

"Internet piracy" started with computer programs. For a long time the most pirated products were Microsoft's Office and Windows. Both those products were created mainly for the business world, and for many years intentionally made easy to copy. In the computer game industry there has been talk of illegal copies being serious problems, that caused some companies to go under. Nothing proven, but there are cases where that was probably one big reason for what happened.

Illegal e-books, like pdfs, is a very small part of the whole thing, and I can't say that I know for sure what is happening there. The pattern from every other part of the "piracy world" says that the illegal downloading is concentrated on big budgeted, mainstream products plus hard-to-get cult classics. For D&D I do personally think that the spread of the core books willl not hurt sales more than having the d20srd site out there did. (In other words, not at all...) Upcoming sourcebooks and adventures are another matter.

What I think is the most important thing to realise with this issue is that there is no point in discussing ethics here. Illegal spread of copyrighted material will not go away, just because people win debates on forums. A productive discussion would be on how our hobby can make sure not to be hurt by this.

I think including miniatures, tiles and big folded maps in adventures and sourcebooks is a good way. I think that making sure that more than a few pages per splatbook are interesting to most consumers is another. I think that free pdfs given out with setting fluff for campaign worlds is good business. And I think the problems with Gleemax and DDI are way more important than any pdf leaks, because in DDI WotC has a potential product that is safe from the "Internet pirates".

 

[Lizard]

Sad, another mind shackled and subdued by generations of propaganda and manipulation by the Owner Caste.

Sad, another mind shackled and subdued by generations of Marxist drivel.

I have a degree in philosophy, does Plato?

Oh, boy, does THAT explain a lot...