Well argument Ad Hominem (or pointing fingers - others do it too) is probably the most used (but completely invalid) argument to get rid of the feeling of guilt. You have to realize that most people don't want to feel guilty about something they're doing, because that might make them change their minds and force them to stop doing it. So if they enjoy doing something, they'll try to justify their actions.

The change of prices of connections acctually seem logical. I mean you pay for electricity, telephone, water, gas... according to a very simple formula: subscription + the amount of usage. So there's a basic subscription which isn't all that expensive and you get different bills according to how much of the service you use. So in case of the internet the connection itself could still be cheap, but you'd have to pay X/MB downloaded.

I remember the discusion of raising CDR/DVDR prices so the companies producing them would pay a sort of a tax to the entertainment industry, because most pirated material was stored on them.

The thing is, I really doubt you can ever shove the $hit back into the horse, so you'll really have to find a way to deal with it. In this case, I really doubt one could change the way of seeing and understanding of something, when there are more and more people thinging in that inapropriate way, so some other solution will be applied.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sebatianos @ Jun 1 2007, 10:00 PM) [snapback]292591[/snapback]</div>That's exactly what I think.

The core question is that the provider chooses what to offer, and the consumer what to purchase, freely. But also, the analogy with the electricity providers is not quite valid. An electricity company generates at any moment only the power that is being consumed at that moment, so at night it spends much less fuel etc. An ISP on the other hand must have at all times the server bandwidth necessary at the peak hour of day, and during the rest of the day part of those resources are idle. I guess that's the reason why flat rates are so common in ISPs, plus people also prefer them if they're affordable because they know they simply can't overspend. But still some providers offer their services in a different way, and I could hire them.

This has been done here in Spain. My father for example has never pirated a single song, but he uses CDs in his business for backup purposes and he has to pay them at more than double their price. I don't think it's fair.

It's true that you can't stop piracy, but that's no valid reason to make the innocent ones pay instead of the guilty ones. I'm sorry but this problem belongs to the copyright holders, not all of us, and it's okay that they try whatever to solve or alleviate it, but only as long as they don't tread on me. If I step on a chewing gum on the street I'm not going to ask for chewing gums to be otlawed. It makes no sense that we had to pay an additional tax on cars because a fraction of them are used to purposedly run over people.

One basis of democracy is the presumption of innocence, but this amounts to presume that everyone is guilty so everyone has a debt with society.

Actually the lobbies having forced this in Spain are less interested in compensating their losses caused by piracy, than in establishing themselves as part of the state apparatus. Most pirated works are American movies/music, but of course all money thus stolen from consumers, guilty and innocent alike, goes to the monopolistic Spanish authors' association. They don't want to submit their works to the public's judgement, they prefer to be paid from everybody's taxes to make their stinking lousy movies nobody wants to watch. Most of their production costs are subsidized, there's a law forcing (!) private TV stations to produce even further Spanish movies --which clearly amounts to state robbery--, and since nobody still wants to see them, there's another law forcing theatres to show a minimal percentage of Spanish productions --same goes for this.

Believe me piracy is used as an excuse but this is a can of worms that shouldn't be opened.

You know a law is good because people spontaneouly abide by it with hardly any need for state vigilance, actually they will report the crime themselves, in fact they would impose the law upon themselves should they start to live in a desert island. You know a law is bad when you must enforce a police state to achieve even partial compliance. The stronger the regulations, the more the black market will flourish, the perfect example is the USSR but Franco's dictatorship here in Spain is also a very good example, especially from the 40s to the 60s when economic regulations were stronger.

Here in Spain Chinese merchants sell bootleg blank CDs which haven't paid the toll. They're cheaper but I would buy them instead of the legal ones even if they were more expensive, just to make sure not a penny goes to these suckers.

I'm not saying now that laws against piracy are unfair, laws that fight piracy with state-powered piracy are. Why piracy is so common then, and people especially youngsters like to justify it morally? Well I think this would get us into a discussion about education and how it has been changing during recent times.

I can't agree more...

It always make me tick when I hear stupid things like "the music industry estimate that they are losing bilions of dollards because of pirates all over the world, downloading mp3's and music without paying them", then point finger at "me" because I do that once in a while...

However, in that "grand scheme" of thing of them, they take for granted that if I actually downloaded the music in the first place, then I would have bought the CD on which only one music track is interesting to me and which is 10 times more costly than what it would cost to have only the one song I want to hear. Even worse, they also take for granted that if I download it, then I absolutly wanted the ware in the first place! Even if, in truth, music is far from being a priority for me and is far, far down in my priority list of luxury I even want to consider paying for...

I estimate that whenever they say that they lose X$ on piracy, you can easily cut that in half and still be over the real numbers... That's without even beginning to talk about the annoyance anti-piracy campains, especially on PC games, add up to the consumers over time... Starforce, anyone?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Jun 2 2007, 12:42 PM) [snapback]292662[/snapback]</div>I agree it's not a valid reason, but I still fear it's going to happen. You say that in democracy people are presumed innocent and this calls for mass public guilt... To be honest, I have several doubts about the functuning of a democratic system (it has - just like any other political system -many flaws). If a lobby is powerful enough they will come through, which means somebody with an interest will tap into the law making part of the comunity and make a profit for himslef (it has allways been going on in capitalisti democratic societies - in fascist or communist societies there were other, slightly different things going on, which were many times even worse).
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Jun 2 2007, 12:42 PM) [snapback]292662[/snapback]</div>And here's the problem, in the modern society almost everybody (if not acctually really everybody) with an internet connection has at one point or the other broken the copyright law. I mean, sure, some people only downloaded a few songs or maybe even just a few pictures (maybe just got them as a joke from a friend), but but that doesn't mean they had the right to. Even if you just open a pps sent to you by friend and it contains a few funny photoes of movie stars, those photoes are copyrighted, so by recieving and opening it you have in a way pirated. So I really doubt that if we'd look strictly at it, there would be a single person who hasn't broken the copyright protection law even once (you say your father hasn't, well I know mine has, but I doubt my mother has - at least not knowingly).
There's also another thing - copyright holders can represent a powerful lobby, the regular users of services are normal people from all different groups of society. It's unlikely they could really unite and form their own powergroup to protect their rights against a lobby of poeple who want to force a community guilt upon them.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Jun 2 2007, 12:42 PM) [snapback]292662[/snapback]</div>There can simply be no such law, because no matter how good a law is, there's always a nutcase who would break it just to test the limits of what can be done and what one can get away with.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sebatianos @ Jun 3 2007, 08:42 AM) [snapback]292744[/snapback]</div>There can simply be no such law, because no matter how good a law is, there's always a nutcase who would break it just to test the limits of what can be done and what one can get away with.[/b][/quote]
And the rest of the society would spontaneouly go and get him. There are such laws indeed, one outlawing killing is the clearest example.

Even though I've committed piracy occasionally, I still think that it's not the right thing to presume everyone is guilty, and I'm not moving from there. Besides what I've pirated is maybe one thousandth or less than what many friends of mine do, not to talk about big for-profit piracy networks, so if I certify that to the authorities will I get to pay less?

Also I made another less ethical, more practical point. Not a single penny of the money stolen by the Spanish authorities from the consumers goes to Hollywood etc. It goes whole to a group of exclusively Spanish so-called authors, whose share of the public's tastes and downloads is minoritary. The piracy issue is a mere excuse the whole time.

That's not exactly the way it goes. If I commit piracy for profit, the competent attorney can prosecute me. But if I'm not getting profit, I can only get prosecuted at the iniciative of the copyright holder. That is if I distribute something but its copyright holder doesn't care, I'm as innocent as a baby.

And that's the way it should be, but every time a copyright holder talks about investigating the violation of his own rights, what is perfectly lawful, everybody shouts, "No way!" Why? Because one could have to account for himself. And most of the people would rather distribute his guilt among his neighbours and not being accountable, no matter how many principles are discarded on the way. People like to hide behind the state just like children hide behind their parents, and in the same way they will renounce their ability to choose on their own.

OK, maybe I've failed to mention this...

I too am against such actions, thatis why I am worried about them maybe happening in the future, so we're basically agreeing. and EoF's argument about presuming people would automatically buy the thing they downloaded - which many wouldn't is also more then valid, so the damage done by piracy is lesser then presented, but it still is something that will play a major role in the future.

Don't think so since piracy exists and has existed for a long time now, I think it is inside every corporate bill made in the last 20 or so years.

when i think of modern pirats a picture of somalies in fast boat armed with heavy maschine gun and AK-47 comes into my mind.


listening to other people's music or watching their movies is not stealing. just because the made a film doesn't mean i will automaticly buy it or see it.

and why are they so lazy...i eman make a recording and then sell it instead of having concerts?!?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gregor @ Jun 4 2007, 12:47 PM) [snapback]292842[/snapback]</div>I want to think you're being ironic, but in case you're not

That first arguement is flawed to the extreme. "watching their movie,[...] doesn't mean I will [...] see it."
That does sound a bit confusing.

About record sales: The records are their means of an income (unless the band's name is KISS in which case the income will come from selling action figures, pez dispensers, comic books etc). Concerts are meant to draw attention to the band and their records. No concerts means less record sales.

Concerts should be the main source of income, I mean they do get paid for their gigs. I always thought that album is a way of promoting music so that people would come to the concerts because musicians are performers, not recordings.

EDIT: That must be cause musicians I know are actual musicians not MTV marketing machine puppets. When they release an album they are happy if they can cover the costs but still live nicely from the gigs.