Digital Piracy Essay

freekhead · 22-11-2005 12:02PM

have a look here for some quotes that might be of help

http://www.approximity.com/public/quotes.html

Pa ElGrande · 22-11-2005 11:14PM

Sully04 wrote:

Ill need a cite/reference for that. Can you provide me the link to the site you got it from? Didnt get it on the one provided here

Thanks m8

Hard to track the original source or context of that but I did find something else from M Serres that might also work.

Le réseau est un lieu où l'on ne cache plus rien. Mon grand espoir est que sur le réseau, le vrai pirate soit le pirate de la vérité.

Translatation
The net is a place where one does not hide anything any more. My great hope is that on the net, the true pirate is the pirate of the truth.

http://www.agora.qc.ca/textes/serres.html

Sully · 22-11-2005 11:39PM

Pa ElGrande wrote:

Hard to track the original source or context of that but I did find something else from M Serres that might also work.

http://www.agora.qc.ca/textes/serres.html

Thanks

Ill reference any page or area where you got that quote, it doesnt have to be the original.

So far I brought a page of an introudction to what Digital Piracy is, and then another page on how it first started (Floopy Disk, CDs, etc) and I plan to expand a bit more before moving onto arguments which are hard to find ><

Ill post it up after I done it, wont get time to give it before. Has to be done later tmrow and its only 2 pages in

Pa ElGrande · 23-11-2005 12:12AM

You know I reckon St Columcille was the first P2P user to be sued, he used sandalnet (the forerunner to sneakernet) to distribute books from libraries, He probably copied them using Scriberipper 550AD.

http://www.copyrightprotection.com/history.htm

Sully · 23-11-2005 04:09PM

OK well we got another extension until tmrow morning. I managed to cover pretty much all suggestions covered here, and got just under 10 pages done. Ill post up the finished document in a few hours, and ill keep it there until tmrow morning at 8AM (the dead line) when I will do the final pieces to it if need be. Im open to suggestions during this time of course.

The one thing my project lacks is other peoples arguments for and against digital piracy. I have done a nice background on piracy and I have so far done Microsofts views, EEF, and some other sites in brief. Ill add some torrent sites later tonight (ill keep the file I upload updated if I make changes between then and tmrow). So I am now going to take individual people's views on digital piracy.

So, if peole could please post back here some constructive comments on whether or not digital piracy is moral, imoral, both and why. I need good arguemnts presented to me for use! NO discussing illegal activites - stick to the forum charter, I dont want the topic getting locked.

Pa ElGrande; Used that comment by Micheal, cheers

Capt'n Midnight · 23-11-2005 07:35PM

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

Note, however, that "No problem should ever have to be solved twice." does not imply that you have to consider all existing solutions sacred, or that there is only one right solution to any given problem. Often, we learn a lot about the problem that we didn't know before by studying the first cut at a solution. It's OK, and often necessary, to decide that we can do better. What's not OK is artificial technical, legal, or institutional barriers (like closed-source code) that prevent a good solution from being re-used and force people to re-invent wheels.

http://www.scientology.org/p_jpg/tmnotice.htm - words you can't use

http://www.xenu.net/copyright.html

Copyright laws were designed to protect the public, as all laws are. They were created "in the public interest". In the case of copyright laws it was deemed that the arts could benefit by giving financial protection to those people who create works of art and so encourage others to do the same. Copyright laws have since been extended to cover many other fields of human endeavour and creativity. However, the basic principle behind it remains the same.

In the case of the secret teachings of Scientology, the Church of Scientology might argue that withholding the information is "in the public interest" in that the teachings can only be revealed to those who have reached the stage of spiritual evolution where they can be appreciated. And in being the custodians of these materials and in the event that many more people would become Scientologists in the future and the same comment about spiritual development would apply then it could be argued that copyright law entitled them to permanently withhold the information since this would therefore be in the public interest. Indeed, they have used this argument in court.

The point here is used more often in patenting where you DENY access to a technology or a work.

Another example is the BBC , they wiped the old Dr Who tapes. Even though the BBC deliberatly destroyed all thier copies of their work they still retain copyright over the copies other made on film. This is important because Dr Who was not a little known work but was broadcast free of charge to the entire nation. (actually back in those days it was possible to get BBC TV broadcasts as far as South Africa if the conditions were really good, so you could argue that it was a word wide distribution by the BBC themselves.)

Have a look at the concept of "Abandonware" - legally you are not allowed to make copies of them, even though there are no ways of buying it from companies that have gone belly up and in many cases no one is sure who owns the rights, about the only thing that is certain is that in a good few cases the legal costs of working out who owns the rights would be worth more than the rights themselves !

There is also the "forced upgrade" where a company refuses to sell older products anymore. An example here is Veritas. Backup Exec 8.5 was a nice clean program. The Backup Exec 9.0 user interface runs on top of IE with all the crud and slowness that implies. Customers don't even have the choice of buying a new license to cover the old product.

Discontinued media is another killer when you actually have downgrad rights, you can use the old product , but impossible to find it.

Sully · 23-11-2005 08:29PM

Here is what is done so far: http://www.thenet2k.com/projects/T&L_Piracy_Essay.doc

To be done: Conclusion & Acknowledgments.

Sully · 24-11-2005 01:03AM

Just done all the references.

Next up (and the job for the morning): A conclusion

Document not updated

Pa ElGrande · 24-11-2005 01:32AM

"Digital Piracy is a form of “digital” theft" -

Its not theft, its copyright infringement in the case of Irelands statute. The use of theft means that owner is deprived of goods and can not longer benefit from their use. Not all areas of the world recognise the existence of copyright (most countries do), since it is a relatively recent concept there is no solid definition what copyright is and the laws around it are still evolving.

Morality and morals are religious concepts. Morality does change and evolve over time. What was considered immoral then is considered moral now, or vice versa. While there is nothing per se in the bible against copyright infringement (there was no such thing as copyright then). One of the ten commandments says "thou shalt not steal", but copyright infringement is not stealing. However if you are a Christian, copyright infringement is still immoral.

St. Paul to the Romans 13:1-2 wrote:

The authority required by the moral order derives from God: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."

http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s1c2a2.htm

So if you are a Christian then P2P sharing of material without the permission of the copyright holder is immoral, because St. Paul teaches that one should honor and obey the secular authorities, in this case the Copyright and related Acts 2000.

Maybe you can make an argument that P2P sharing is ethical since ethics and mores are secular concepts, it exposes the content creator to a wider audience, thus increasing their sales , concert attendance etc. and also offering the long term distribution mechanism free of one sided contracts with record cartels.

Anyhow its late, so I'll sign off before a flame war ensues.

Sully · 27-11-2005 02:18AM

Finished Product (PDF Format)::

http://www.thenet2k.com/projects/Piracy_Essay.pdf

Its not a big file. Only 11 pages, could have done more but what was done was still O.T.T

aidan_walsh · 27-11-2005 02:40AM

So, we buy a CD in a shop, shouldn’t we own the whole CD including
its contents? Seems not, which is pretty pathetic.

Its never been the case where you buy a CD and own the contents. The idea of the license for use being represented in text and districuted with the medium may be relatively new granted, but the artist and the publisher has always owned the content of the CD, all you have ever bought off them has been the right to use the disc.

PhantomBeaker · 27-11-2005 02:51AM

I know you're done now, but I've only stumbled on this product now. One interesting angle/take would be the way that Adobe and Macromedia seem to work.

Case in point, macromedia frequently offer demos of their most popular software (like flash) that can be activated really easily to their full version with just a keygen. They know that the keygen will eventually be broken, and these are smart people - they know how to code, and they're very capable of writing more watertight copy protection. So why don't they?

One very prevalent theory is that if it wasn't as easy to pirate, it wouldn't be as widely used. Look at newgrounds.com or similar, where lots of teenagers send in their work to be evaluated... or at least lots of people who seem like teenagers. How many of them do you think would have the cash to drop on a copy of Flash to make it? Not many.

So, why provide it? Well, there are going to be more people that hit the jobs market that have experience with Macromedia's suite of tools. And however much an individual can afford to pirate, a company certainly can't afford to be caught using an unlicensed copy.

I've heard similar stories involving Adobe and Photoshop. It would appear that it's in their interests to be trivial to pirate. I dunno about you, but I think that's an interesting spin to put on things.

P.B.

Sully · 28-11-2005 02:48PM

aidan_walsh wrote:

Its never been the case where you buy a CD and own the contents. The idea of the license for use being represented in text and districuted with the medium may be relatively new granted, but the artist and the publisher has always owned the content of the CD, all you have ever bought off them has been the right to use the disc.

Ya I know, but I wasnt aware of that until I did the essay

PhantomBeaker wrote:

I know you're done now, but I've only stumbled on this product now. One interesting angle/take would be the way that Adobe and Macromedia seem to work.

Case in point, macromedia frequently offer demos of their most popular software (like flash) that can be activated really easily to their full version with just a keygen. They know that the keygen will eventually be broken, and these are smart people - they know how to code, and they're very capable of writing more watertight copy protection. So why don't they?

One very prevalent theory is that if it wasn't as easy to pirate, it wouldn't be as widely used. Look at newgrounds.com or similar, where lots of teenagers send in their work to be evaluated... or at least lots of people who seem like teenagers. How many of them do you think would have the cash to drop on a copy of Flash to make it? Not many.

So, why provide it? Well, there are going to be more people that hit the jobs market that have experience with Macromedia's suite of tools. And however much an individual can afford to pirate, a company certainly can't afford to be caught using an unlicensed copy.

I've heard similar stories involving Adobe and Photoshop. It would appear that it's in their interests to be trivial to pirate. I dunno about you, but I think that's an interesting spin to put on things.

P.B.

Ah no problem, always like to hear feedback even after its done. Might help for future essays. Actualy, I have one person saying the opposite to you. I didnt include it in the essay as I didnt find it very constructive argument. Here it is;

FACT: Companies like macromedia and adobe would not have to charge as much as they do for software if they did not have to counter-balance against the immense amount of piracy they face.

Pita, 2005, View Here, Invisionize - Digital Piracy -- Your Views Please.

garred · 28-11-2005 05:00PM

Should of just "copied" someone elses

. Wonder would your teacher of gotten the irony?
I remember my first piracy act...holding down the play & record button and getting blisters while listening for my favourite song on the radio. You youngsters have too much technology these days.

doreandwight · 28-11-2005 05:20PM

How about the phenomenal rise of MP3 players - is this directly related to the rise of illegally downloaded MP3s?

Sully · 28-11-2005 05:21PM

garred wrote:

Should of just "copied" someone elses . Wonder would your teacher of gotten the irony?
I remember my first piracy act...holding down the play & record button and getting blisters while listening for my favourite song on the radio. You youngsters have too much technology these days.

LOL very good :P

Ah now, technology is what brought you here today

Sully · 28-11-2005 05:24PM

doreandwight wrote:

How about the phenomenal rise of MP3 players - is this directly related to the rise of illegally downloaded MP3s?

ITs considered illegal apparently but I dont think that the rise of MP3 players and piracy are connected much!

Digital Piracy Essay

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