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Is The Internet Destroying Copyright?


David

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Absolutely. I read that piracy dropped 32% since the introduction of the "you wouldn't steal a car, would you?" advert at the start of films.

 

What, seriously? I assumed everyone hated those adverts as much as I do.

 

No, not seriously. I was just underlining what a retarded hypothesis Khemical was making,

 

What I said in my second sentence and what Butch said, though, is true.

 

 

 

Edit: I don't think you've gone far enough Richie. You're using the internet at all, so you're still part of the problem. The only way to prove those kids wrong is chuck your laptop out of the window now and never look back.

 

Do it.

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Absolutely. I read that piracy dropped 32% since the introduction of the "you wouldn't steal a car, would you?" advert at the start of films.

 

What, seriously? I assumed everyone hated those adverts as much as I do.

 

No, not seriously.

 

What I said in my second sentence and what Butch said, though, is true.

 

The world makes a little bit more sense. Phew.

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Oh yeah.. back on topic.

 

Why is this tiresome old bore (Towshend, not David) targetting iTunes particularly? Is he really that dumb that he thinks stopping digital music sale will help the fight against piracy? Anyone who agrees with him is just stupid. I don't fully understand the point he's trying to make, and I don't think he does either.

 

This is a complete non-story; an old man ranting about things he doesn't understand.

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You can't "destroy" copyright. The Internet just makes it easier to breach. Doesn't make it fair game.

 

It comes down to a lack of education. Too many people think, "Well, if it's on a website for free then I'm not breaking copyright." And the amount of people that upload videos and then put in a little diddy "disclaimer" in the description box saying, "No copyright infringement intended" when that's exactly what they've done makes me want to punch something.

 

 

Absolutely. I read that piracy dropped 32% since the introduction of the "you wouldn't steal a car, would you?" advert at the start of films.

 

I bet that was just some stat-twisting to make it look like they were winning the unwinnable war. If anything, they were probably solely measuring torrent traffic, which probably has dropped, since the last couple of years have seen a shift towards blogs and sites that host everything on Megaupload/Fileshare etc, especially when so many ISPs traffic shape to screw you out of being able to torrent anyway. I haven't used a torrent in about 4 years.

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I would steal a car if it was a piece of piss and I'd be guaranteed to get away with it anyway.

 

I'd probably steal a car if I had no intention of buying one anyway and if "stealing" the car actually meant magically cloning it so the original was left intact.

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The internet's not destroying copyright, but it is changing the way IP is monetarised.

 

Music is a good example I suppose. My first contract with a record label was a "recording contract" - which meant that they would pay for any recording costs for the album. In return for that outlay, I'd bet a handsome 15% or something of any net income.

 

Even at that point, that was already an outmoded type of contract - I recorded the stuff myself in my bedroom, so the cost/profit ratios were all wrong. Now my current contract is a 50/50 split of net profits. And those profits are generated in very different ways to 20 years ago. The number of physical units the average musician shifts is much lower, and the mechanical costs make it practically a loss-leader unless you're Oasis or something.

 

iTunes is the mainstay of income, pay per tune, and then you have all the other download sites like trackitdown.net and so on. You also get a penny or two whenever someone listens to your music on LastFM, Spotify or whatever, but getting hold of that is much harder as it requires MCPS membership and various other things. I've never bothered to jump through the hoops of all that, but then I'm not really doing this for the money. Literally millions of pounds a year must slip through the cracks with radio/internet radio play (worldwide, obv, no just me!)

 

The best way to make money out of music is - live gigs and licensing. The usage of your music on compilation albums or in jukeboxes, or on tv or adverts, is very lucrative, and playing live gigs can be decent pay too once you're a bit known.

 

This change, from shifting physical copies to small payments for plays and live/licensing, is definitely down to the internet. The end result though is that nobody is making as much money as they used to - not the labels and not the artists. I think the last remix I did, there were 10 times as many illegal downloads of as copies sold. No matter how motivated you are to chase every legal penny, that's still a lot of copies stolen.

 

Richard Pryor used to steal most of it, though.

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And the amount of people that upload videos and then put in a little diddy "disclaimer" in the description box saying, "No copyright infringement intended" when that's exactly what they've done makes me want to punch something.

Don't forget "Credit to the original uploader", which appears on YouTube videos and torrent files of copyrighted material that have been re-upped. Heaven forbid that the original uploader feel cheated that his work is passed along as somebody else's.

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I'd probably steal a car if I had no intention of buying one anyway and if "stealing" the car actually meant magically cloning it so the original was left intact.

What if you then repainted the clone and drove off, and the owner of the original was screaming "how's this for car theft?" even though their version of the car was still intact?

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No, not seriously. I was just underlining what a retarded hypothesis Khemical was making

How is it retarded? Just because an annoying advert at the start of commercial DVDs hasn't had a great impact on video piracy doesn't mean people are listening to songs on YouTube and whatnot because they think it's "copyright free" and nothing will happen to them. That was the point I was making.

 

A lack of education isn't the be all and end all. It's the first step. Once you've told everyone, "Hey, this is wrong and actually breaking the law" you then need consequences at the end of it, otherwise it's going to keep on happened.

 

Unfortunately, those in power are retarded and think making up stupid laws like, disconnecting anyone suspected of copyright infringement (you don't even get investigated or trailed) that will do more harm than good. What happens if someone buys a router, doesn't have the technical know-how to secure it and someone piggy-backs it and downloads months of music?

 

Any-who, tangent over.

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Richie doesn't really agree with Townshend anyway. Townshend's point is that people should be getting paid if their work is generating money for others. I don't think Musawa's estate, or even Ian Rotten, has seen a penny from all the DVD-Rs Richie's paid some lemon to burn for him.

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