Re: "My dad is a pirate."

[El Tux]

On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:57:09 -0800, Banty wrote:

> In article <13rui7ilqmgq4d0@news.supernews.com>, El Tux says...
>>
>>On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:19:37 +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote:
>>
>>> El Tux wrote:
>>> 
>>> [... Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985) ...]
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Oh dear El Tux, that (1985) was long before December 16, 1997, when
>>> President Clinton signed HR 2265 -- the No Electronic Theft Act --
>>> into law.
>>
>>Dear Alexander, that doesn't matter in the least because we're
>>discussing concepts here, not legal definitions which, BTW, tend to use
>>common words in uncommon ways. The poster cited a USSC judge's comment
>>to support the *concept* that file-sharing is stealing, and I quoted
>>another to show that not all USSC judges share the same view. Simple
>>black-and-white cases rarely make it to the USSC so it's commonplace for
>>the justices to disagree with each other. One can find a quote to
>>support either side of just about anything that's been brought before
>>the Supreme Court.
> 
> Your quoting a 1985 case on it, though, is akin to quoting traffic rules
> designed to keep horses from being frightened, in a 2008 auto traffic
> discussion.  Completely different time, completely different concerns. 
> In 1985 there was not an internet or other medium that enabled
> mega-copying that would drive the market cost of any creation that can
> be expressed in bits, to nearly zero.

I guess some people are just incapable of comprehending higher-order
concepts.


>>As for the No Electronic Theft Act and the later DMCA, voters never
>>asked for either. Those were all but written by the music and movie
>>industries and rushed through by their pet politicians. I do not believe
>>these laws represent the will of the American people and neither,
>>apparently, do most of the American people.
> 
> Are you so sure about that?  Once you leave your cozy abode in the linux
> groups, whoa - looky, people are arguing with you!!  Maybe you need to
> get out more.

Well then do you assert that the "pirates" are in fact an politically
insignificant minority? If so, how do you reconcile small numbers with
all these profits they're supposedly taking away from artists?

And BTW, are you disputing the RIAA's file-sharing numbers?  :)
 
> The congress that passed that law are those elected by you and me in a
> representative democracy.

No, our democracy is no longer representative. The US government is
largely run by the corporations now. The Democrats and Republicans are
each owned by different corporate entities, but they're still
owned. You can vote for an independent part if you want, but both
major parties have contrived election laws so third parties have
practically zero chance. We have about the same choice as people in
the Soviet Union 30 years ago, when they could vote for anyone they
wanted to but only party members were allowed on the ballot.

Even if our system weren't so badly broken, your suggestion is
unworkable, incredibly naive, and likely to lead to a failing grade in
Political Science 101.

> 
>>The rather high
>>percentage of the population that's engaged in file-sharing,
> 
> A certain segment does that simply because it's free and easy.

And yet, file-sharing has zero effect on CD sales (Felix
Oberholzer-Gee, 2004, Harvard Business School, in a peer-reviewed
study). Other independent studies have reported similar results.

> 
>>the
>>surging sales in portable media players capable of holding ten times
>>more music than the average American buys in a lifetime, the high demand
>>for terabyte hard drives, and the strong demand for ever-faster
>>broadband all suggest that if we put it to the voters, they would repeal
>>the DMCA and NETA, explicitly legalize file-sharing, and probably make
>>some other long-needed changes in copyright law to restore its original
>>purpose of stimulating artistic and scientific creativity.
>>
>>If you want people to respect the law, then they must first be able to
>>respect the process that created it.
> 
> If you want to change the law, use that process to change it.  

That's only an option if the process is respectable.

> But the hitch is - you'll have to make convincing arguments, not
> just point to how many file-copying buddies you have.  I think
> that's what grieves ya.

I'm not the one with the problem, I don't have to do anything. :)

And BTW, you need to get over this silly idea that everyone who
advocates more-sensible copyright laws is a pirate.