Pirate Party UK

[ImprobableJoe]

hyppocrite, your not exactly coming accross as a nice person yourself you know.

Ah, yes... you call me names while telling me I'm not nice. Sweet! :lol:

 

[COMMUNIST FLISK]

well its the TRUTH, so deal with it, not only did i not call you names but i am simply pointing out a fact that anyone else (including yourself) can see if they just read the rest of the topic.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

well its the TRUTH, so deal with it, not only did i not call you names but i am simply pointing out a fact that anyone else (including yourself) can see if they just read the rest of the topic.

No, I'm not "nice" but that doesn't make me a hypocrite, which means you're just name-calling for no good reason.

 

[COMMUNIST FLISK]

You are a thief, so i'm done with you.

No, I'm not "nice" but that doesn't make me a hypocrite, which means you're just name-calling for no good reason.

not "namecalling" in any sense. you are a hypoccrite joe plain and simple, besides, ending your so-called arguement with "you are a thief, so i'm done with you" is just completley and utterly rediculous. and then you complain at us for not arguing correctly? i think that makes you by definition a hyppocrite.

 

[Th1sWasATriumph]

besides, ending your so-called arguement with "you are a thief, so i'm done with you" is just completley and utterly rediculous. and then you complain at us for not arguing correctly? i think that makes you by definition a hyppocrite.

Dude, anyone who downloads illegally is technically committing theft. It's a legitimate, non-adhom usage of the term.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

not "namecalling" in any sense. you are a hypoccrite joe plain and simple, besides, ending your so-called arguement with "you are a thief, so i'm done with you" is just completley and utterly rediculous. and then you complain at us for not arguing correctly? i think that makes you by definition a hyppocrite.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Further, as pointed out, the people who are advocating for the "Pirate Party" ARE thieves, by definition. They are proud of their thievery, and could only have been more accurate if they have called themselves the "S3elfish and Spoiled Crooks Party." It isn't MY fault that my description is accurate.

 

[COMMUNIST FLISK]

i know what "theft" is, im saying that you ending your argument in that way is just plain wrong, considering you seem to want people to put forward arguments correctly etc

 

[Otokogoroshi]

I still don't understand why people keep circling around illegal downloading. Is it wrong? Yes, that's why its called illegal. However on the spectrum of wrong its a pretty pathetic one.

Having said that the main reason I'm puzzled as to why this keeps getting hammered on is because seemingly from everything I've looked at no one is actually arguing that their primary point is even CLOSE to being about downloading music without having to pay for it.

Most of what I've seen of these people's desires has to do with easing restrictions that could easily be used to punish innocent people. Innocent people HAVE gone to jail and even more people are at risk because of laws that are too broad. Laws that by the way have little to do with music pirating or even the act of pirating itself.

So yes it is insulting for Joe and Triumph to suggest that all these people want is their free music. Not only that it's just downright wrong.

Seemingly people are latching on to a tiny aspect and worrying at that like a pit bull ignoring the rest of their argument.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I still don't understand why people keep circling around illegal downloading. Is it wrong? Yes, that's why its called illegal. However on the spectrum of wrong its a pretty pathetic one.

Having said that the main reason I'm puzzled as to why this keeps getting hammered on is because seemingly from everything I've looked at no one is actually arguing that their primary point is even CLOSE to being about downloading music without having to pay for it.

You didn't read the posts on the other side, did you. You're right in that it isn't about illegal downloading of a couple of songs: they are specifically talking about abolishing copyright entirely, so that no one has a right to own ANY creative work. Here, take a look:

1> We wish to REFORM copyright to limit it's effective roll and it's licensing length. (To stop this monopoly bullshit where people are paid 1p to make one CD and then the distributors sell it on for ,£25 a disk)
U;ultimately abolish it completely to insure that this monopoly does not effect main media the way it currently does
2> Abolish Patent law.
3> Insure personal privacy is respected by the large distribution companies. Currently the American government and Several others are secretly trying to put a directive together concerning IP tracking technology. Which is a serious breach of free speech directives.

# 3 is there to make sure no one can ever enforce any copyright law, ever. Do you see now that it is bigger than you and your whole "try before you buy" stuff? It is about making it completely legal to use ALL creative work without every being required to pay for it.

 

[Ozymandyus]

Yeah, when I read that post I was completely baffled... he seemed to me to be trying to say: you are making us sound WAY too reasonable... like we only want to pirate music and software and such... what we REALLY want is to completely abolish all laws that allow anyone to profit from their creative labor! Pirating music is just a tiny part of what we want!

Oooooh you are right! I totally misunderstood! Where do I sign up!?

All this talk about monopoly and only a handful of people making money off of this or that industry or whatever is so ludicrous. For a CD that costs 16 bucks the profits are split between HUNDREDS of people. You are not just ripping off the artist, you are ripping off the people that work in the stores or own stores, people that advertised the cds and worked on the cover art etc, people that worked their asses off promoting the cds, people that run recording studios and do sound mixing.... the list goes on and on.

Furthermore, the barriers to entry on the creative side are incredibly small - anyone can sit down and record an album and try to promote it on the internet. It's not going to have the millions of dollars and infrastructure to promote it, but that is part of why they charge as much as they do for the big name CDs. Compare that to manufacturing barriers to entry and you see that it is completely impossible to monopolize a creative industry. ESPECIALLY if you actually support small musicians outside the framework of the big recording industries, or use linux, or do anything else you can to support the little guy - which is what you SHOULD be doing instead of pirating.

 

[Aught3]

2> Abolish Patent law.

To take a specific example - drug companies, I was just wondering how you would expect them to be motivated to produce new drugs if they didn't have exclusive rights to manufacture it for what, seven years?

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Yeah, when I read that post I was completely baffled... he seemed to me to be trying to say: you are making us sound WAY too reasonable... like we only want to pirate music and software and such... what we REALLY want is to completely abolish all laws that allow anyone to profit from their creative labor! Pirating music is just a tiny part of what we want!

Oooooh you are right! I totally misunderstood! Where do I sign up!?

All this talk about monopoly and only a handful of people making money off of this or that industry or whatever is so ludicrous. For a CD that costs 16 bucks the profits are split between HUNDREDS of people. You are not just ripping off the artist, you are ripping off the people that work in the stores or own stores, people that advertised the cds and worked on the cover art etc, people that worked their asses off promoting the cds, people that run recording studios and do sound mixing.... the list goes on and on.

Furthermore, the barriers to entry on the creative side are incredibly small - anyone can sit down and record an album and try to promote it on the internet. It's not going to have the millions of dollars and infrastructure to promote it, but that is part of why they charge as much as they do for the big name CDs. Compare that to manufacturing barriers to entry and you see that it is completely impossible to monopolize a creative industry. ESPECIALLY if you actually support small musicians outside the framework of the big recording industries, or use linux, or do anything else you can to support the little guy - which is what you SHOULD be doing instead of pirating.

You're also eliminating any and all incentive for touring... because touring costs money, and if there's no one making any money on CD sales, there's no one to fund the tours, or new albums, or anything else.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. It means the end of the movie theater. It means the end of new medicines. It means the end of every possible advancement that actually costs money to produce. If you throw out copyright and patent laws, it means the end of any incentive for anyone to create anything.

I guess that's no problem for the pirates, since they only take and have no interest in actually producing anything on their own.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

To take a specific example - drug companies, I was just wondering how you would expect them to be motivated to produce new drugs if they didn't have exclusive rights to manufacture it for what, seven years?

I guess they should just do it out of the kindness of their hearts?

Does this remind anyone else of some other threads we've had recently? The Venus Project, maybe some Communism or Libertarian directed threads? There's this common theme of "let's just get rid of X, Y, and Z, then other stuff happens, and *poof* the perfect outcome appears in a puff of magic pixie dust." There's no actual thinking involved, no consideration of real-world conditions or human nature.

 

[COMMUNIST FLISK]

thats a bad example

most drugs arent patented. (hence why you can get like 20 brands of the same damn thing - painkillers) yet all the companies produce them

 

[ImprobableJoe]

thats a bad example

most drugs arent patented. (hence why you can get like 20 brands of the same damn thing - painkillers) yet all the companies produce them

How is that even remotely useful? All the GOOD drugs are patented. All new drugs are patented. Eventually the patents run out, and there are generics... after the original creator has enough time to make a profit and recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars they spend developing drugs.

 

[Ozymandyus]

thats a bad example

most drugs arent patented. (hence why you can get like 20 brands of the same damn thing - painkillers) yet all the companies produce them

They are patented. The patents just expire after a set number of years, like almost all patents. Even generic drugs are often patented formulas, even if the individual active ingredients are no longer patented (because they've expired.) Either way, a big part of the funding for researching new drugs (which is unbelievably expensive) is recouped by patenting. If a company could just start making that drug as soon as someone else did all the research to get it FDA approved then NO company would ever research new drugs.

This is the thing about most people arguing for the non-copyright side I feel. They don't even know how any of the laws even work.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

This is the thing about most people arguing for the non-copyright side I feel. They don't even know how any of the laws even work.

I don't think they know how anything works, besides knowing that they want everything, and want to contribute nothing.

 

[Aught3]

thats a bad example

most drugs arent patented. (hence why you can get like 20 brands of the same damn thing - painkillers) yet all the companies produce them

I'm not really talking about most drugs, I said in my post that I was specifically referring to the production of new drugs and even mentioned what I thought the time limit on a patent was (7 years, at a guess).

Even if it is a bad example, I'm still interested in what the answer would be

Edit: turns out drug companies get an average of 10-12 years protection via a patent.

 

[richi1173]

To add to the discussion: What do you guys think of fan-subbing - the practice of subtitling anime or/and manga illegally?

Anime and manga companies offer pretty lame services when it comes to international distribution. Series often lag years behind their native counterparts. The Dragon Ball Z anime, for example, ended in Japan on January 31, 1996. For its North American (legal) release, fans had to wait another 7 years.

The biggest improvement I heard in recent months is that Viz Media (the North American distributor of Naruto) is going to subtitle episodes in English a week after their Japanese TV debuts. Its still pretty lame compared to the 6 hour lag time between the Japanese debut of an anime or manga and the English sub version that illegal subbers provide. Still, its a huge improvement.

 

[Th1sWasATriumph]

So yes it is insulting for Joe and Triumph to suggest that all these people want is their free music. Not only that it's just downright wrong.

Seemingly people are latching on to a tiny aspect and worrying at that like a pit bull ignoring the rest of their argument.

Given that I've ended up directly having to defend my right as a musician to own the copyright to my own goddamn songs, that is clearly ONE of the issues and, as a musician, one which strikes closer to home. Read back through the posts.