Digital Economy Bill

[Cube]

The people who make MATLAB and SuperStress should have a think about the DRM and stuff. I reckon that their sales would noticeably increase in a few years if they let it onto torrenting sites around now.

 

As for 3DS Max, they seem to have stopped/increase the price of the student version. When I worked at a software reseller it cost £99 for a 2-year license for 3DS Max.

[Supergrunch]

Piracy is like going to that theme park and checking it all out then totally just going home and making your own exact replica and THEN riding it til forever without paying. However, piracy is hard to compare with real life situations because to do anything and replicate anything irl it costs alot more, with a computer data duplication is a simple click(and also mind blowing to think of in comparison), and that costs very little.

The best comparison I've come across is that piracy is like going into a bookshop and photocopying every page of a book, then putting it back on the shelf without damaging it, whereas theft is actually stealing the book.

 

Also, good luck downloading a car and finding it has the same numberplate. :wink:

[Sheikah]

Piracy is like going to that theme park and checking it all out then totally just going home and making your own exact replica and THEN riding it til forever without paying. However, piracy is hard to compare with real life situations because to do anything and replicate anything irl it costs alot more, with a computer data duplication is a simple click(and also mind blowing to think of in comparison), and that costs very little.

I wouldn't say it's like that. In that instance, you use your own materials and rely on your own skill to produce the theme park rather than the skill of others to produce work that you took a copy of.

 

The closest comparison would be an online journal paper; rather than printing several copies of a journal and sending it to subscribers (which many still do), you could opt to convert all articles into a single PDF and e-mail all subscribers. Obtaining a copy of this PDF by other means would basically mean the only thing different from stealing a paper copy is that you stole the paper copy minus the paper. Which would mean you stole £X (journal cost) minus however many pence the value of the paper. Clearly in these cases, the theft of information is disproportionately more important than the material it is printed on.

 

In the theme park example, copy of a journal paper would involve looking at the layout and design of a current journal paper (which I am sure many do), funding research teams to conduct research and then publish their findings in your journal. Which, I think you can see, is not impacting the original journal in any way; their ideas are not really stolen, nor are materials or labour.

 

Unlike many in this topic, I would classify piracy as theft purely because I believe theft should apply to more than physical property. Information is often more expensive than the material it is printed or burned onto, and although the information is technically never consumed by taking a copy, a copy is still essentially stolen and the persons involved in its manufacture are ultimately unpaid for their work.

Edited April 16, 2010 by Sheikah

[Kirkatronics]

Think that about war if you want. But at the end of the day the law is on the side of the men in uniform because they send them there. not only that they pay me a tidy sum to go there and possibly kill someone.

Tahts actuallly quite a silly thing to say. Thats basically saying the law is always right, and that you never break the law.

 

Just a quick question, have you ever had earphones in whilst driving or cycling?

Thats illegal.

How about used an MP3 player?

The transfer of songs to an MP3 player is illegal in most cases.

[Ashley]

Think that about war if you want. But at the end of the day the law is on the side of the men in uniform because they send them there. not only that they pay me a tidy sum to go there and possibly kill someone.

 

What a horrible thing to say. And I can't imagine the armed forces would enjoy their employees boasting about being paid to kill.

 

Anyway, back to DEB. Got a leaflet from Labour local candidate last week asking for feedback and found out she didn't even go to the vote for this, so going to write back a reply and see what kind of company line I get.

 

And I also remembered a Veronica Mars episode featured someone framing someone else through conducting criminal activities via his unprotected wireless internet and she figured it out. Comes to something when Veronica Mars is smarter than the government </stupid banal point>

[Emasher]

What a horrible thing to say. And I can't imagine the armed forces would enjoy their employees boasting about being paid to kill.

 

In all fairness, he was responding to an equally "horrible"(For lack of a better word) post.

[Rummy]

The best comparison I've come across is that piracy is like going into a bookshop and photocopying every page of a book, then putting it back on the shelf without damaging it, whereas theft is actually stealing the book.

 

Also, good luck downloading a car and finding it has the same numberplate. :wink:

 

Ah, well that's where I just bust out my handy hex editor and do a bit of fiddling...

 

That is a much better example, though.

[Marcamillian]

We have had this conversation before Rummy. Whilst I agree with you that it isn't stealing, I suspect the ire that you are met with is due to the fact that it seems that you are implying its not wrong. Whilst it doesn't directly take something away from someone (assuming there is some truth behind arguments that the content wouldnt be paid for anyway), for me its still a moral case of gaining something I don't deserve. No equivilent exchange.

 

Also, what is the charge in court if suspected of illegal downloading? If the official charge is IP theft (the theft of an idea) would that end the semantic argument?

[Rummy]

I''d guess at it being infringement(they'd call it copyright infringement I assume, applying to any IP rights but I'm not sure), they wouldn't call it theft because it isn't theft and that is my point. You know how finickity the legal system can be and it's simply calling something by its wrong name, actually something which I believe could get a charge or case dismissed. What you all wish to assume of what I'm saying is up to you, despite the fact I've stated more than once that I am not addressing the actual legality of the matter in my posts, and would rather wish people would stop acting like I was! Grunch also pointed out a very crucial legal difference between the two, too.

 

EDIT: I went to work after this post and realised that I forgot to point out the most obvious point. That is that you also can't 'steal' an idea either, when you can copy it, but the original idea will still remain in the originiator's head and mind etcetc

 

(and holy triple post what is up with that and you should be revising too!)

Edited April 18, 2010 by Rummy

[McPhee]

I've got to laugh. How much work went in to the Digital Economy Bill? How much time and money did it cost?

 

It's all been for nothing; ender SeedFucker.

 

It's a new coding project that's been set up, feeding off a Bit Torrent exploit found a few months ago. When it finally matures (shouldn't be much longer now) it will make it impossible for even your ISP to identify that you're downloading files off Bit Torrent. It's the hacking community's direct reply to the Digital Economy Bill and it's taking weeks, not the months or maybe even years that it took to form the DEBill.

 

I'm not condoning piracy here, just highlighting how futile this whole thing is. Rights holders need to make legal use more appealing than illegal use if they want to kill piracy. Music is a prime example imo, Spotify, Last.FM, Pandora, Zune Pass, Napster, Amazon all have the right idea.

[Debug Mode]

SeedFucker sounds incredibly interesting.. a quick google shows many articles trying to debunk it however.

[Sheikah]

Just googled SeedFucker, and it does seem to have been totally debunked.

[Dan_Dare]

out of curiosity, how is this thing enforced? is it enforced already? How many eyes does Big Brother have watching me right this second?

[McPhee]

Heh. That'll teach me to believe stuff I read on Trusted Reviews. I should know by now, they rarely edit their articles/admit they're wrong/made a mistake so if it seems too good to be true it probably is

 

Ah well, I'll just continue to use next doors WiFi instead