Posts by h4rm0ny

Re: DoS?

Charles 9 wrote: "which means other peers will expect you to have all the pieces, which can then be verified by hash checks of the individual pieces"

How would that work? You can have the hashes without the actual pieces. Genuine question in case I've missed something.

Re: DoS?

I think from the article above, we don't know enough to say what this will or wont achieve. Your suggestion is very plausible and would have an effect. Like other suggestions here, there are ways to defend against it. But all the real ways to defend against what people have proposed as how this might work, come down to some sort of web of trust. You can have a P2P network that protects against all sorts of attacks, but it's very difficult if you trust anyone, rather than authenticate your peers by some sort of reputation system.

So in a way, even if BitTorrent finds counter-measures to this, if those counter-measures involve making it harder to become a trusted member of the group, this is a success for the attacker and pushes pirate networks back toward being an underground sort of thing.

Of course it's not a problem for legal torrenters. E.g. distributing Linux isos. It's just a problem for illegitimate ones.

Re: Ignorance is bliss

For purposes of this discussion? Societies that believe the person responsible for producing a good thing should receive benefit for it and that others don't get to force the person producing the good thing to produce it if they don't think its worth their time to do so. I.e. a producer can set a price as they wish for non-essential things they make.

Re: @OP

You might have a reasonable case for the games. I don't play them so I'm not well up on games DRM. I am aware it causes people problems. But the two things I would observe on that is whether the people downloading the games are also buying them and just using the pirated copy. That would be an ethical behaviour but I suspect in the overwhelming majority of cases, they are not. The second thing is that the degree to which DRM is obstructive on games is probably a result of the very high levels of piracy. DRM came second, after all. No games company *wants* to have to make the experience less pleasant for their legitimate users and they certainly don't want to have to pay extra money to DRM producers (or spend developer resource on it if it is in-house).

I fully take your point and it's a rational argument which I respect. But I think the above two points are significant.

Re: Restriction Of Ideas Is Silly

Actually, a false fact has been snuck past you hiding in all the dubious logic. Cars don't depreciate by 15% the instant someone tries them out for the day. Can you imagine a car seller accepting 15% loss of the gross sale price because the car had been driven about for less than 48 hours?

You get that sort of depreciation when you *buy* the car. Because people regard a new car from a recognized dealer as safer than buying from a private individual they don't know. But not from a test-drive, not even a 24/48 hour try-out period.

Just a comment on a detail. Agree with your argument.

Re: The true cost of being a "freetard"

"I don't think I made my point very well. What I am saying is that I pay a lot of money to be branded a criminal freetard, but the fact is I cannot get the product I am after through legitimate means"

Ah, see now that's one of the "legitimate" reasons. Quote marks because by legitimate, I mean its not simply about not being willing to pay. It's in there with availability in different reasons. I'm not actually going to argue against that. I think it's one of those things that is just an artifact of the newness of online distribution and it will resolve itself in time as the companies wise up to the business opportunity of selling directly to the customers in different regions. What I am saying is that there are very few of these "legitimate" reasons left and most of what is put forward (certainly on here) has merely been rationalisation of taking things for free, rather than actual consistent reasons.

"IMO however, the entire industry is completely out of whack. Does (purely for illustrative purposes) Tom Cruise deserve to get paid what he does for acting? Seriously?"

Personally, no, Those sums are out of proportion to other careers that I thnk have greater contribution to society. But then that's my personal view and it's not really up to me to say how much a company (e.g. a studio) can pay its employees (e.g. Tom Cruise). They obviously think he's worth paying that much (it's funny how critics both accuse movie and music studios of being impossibly greedy and cheating their artists whilst in the next post complaining about how overpaid the artists are. Not talking about you, btw. Just that I see this a lot). Anyway, more to the point, the public are willing to pay for it. I don't really know whether Tom Cruise, the script writer or the pyrotecnics girl are getting more than they should. I just buy the product and leave it to the shareholders to deal with it if Tom Cruise's salaray is eating into their profits.

"Perhaps the industry is realising now that the *real* money is not and has never been in the content itself, but in the distribution of said content (from physical media to bit and bytes)."

See now there we disagree. It's the middle people who are going to ultimately lose out by new distribution methods. High street shops selling DVDs, etc. Bad times for them. But the content producers would love to be able to sell things online. Do sell things online. I can buy quality MP3s or movie downloads and it is fine. I don't think any of them have any issue with the new distribution methods other than that people use them to take without paying.

"I know this is a slightly different angle to the regular argument vis a vis is it stealing or not, but I think it needs to be pointed out. They made their bed, but they're not getting much sleep in it."

Go ahead. I'm arguing with the idiots who try to explain why they are entitled to something for free and why they aren't freeloading on what other people pay when they download the latest movie. That's what "Freetard" means. Yours is one of the more intelligent posts here.

"Not everything is black and white."

Please tell that to the person I'm arguing with upthread who insists celebrities are evil. ;)

Cheers,

H.

Re: The true cost of being a "freetard"

"*Never posted before, is that the freetard logo?"

No. You've used Tux which is the Linux logo here. Someone writing O/S software is almost the opposite of a Freetard in concept. A Free Software programmer gives freely. A Freetard takes freely.

"Seems to me someone getting paid the BIG bucks (read: media industry CEO) is missing out on my money."

Well the thing is, if you can sell the same product as someone else but you don't have to pay the development or production costs because someone else has done that, then you can sell it for cheaper. I.e. if you pay £10mil to the venues and athletes, etc. in order to be allowed to film the match, you hire the cameras, etc., you're going to have to cover your costs. If someone else then takes the finished recording and sells it themselves, they don't. So it's not really a case of the legitimate seller being stupid for not charging as much as the illegitimate one. They will NEVER be able to compete with someone who takes their product from them and re-sells it illegally. Just logically not going to happen.

And no, btw. I don't know where you got the idea that we're only worried about the "artists". I'm actually rather sick of some people leaching off the willingness to pay that the rest of us show. Piracy ultimately leaves the burden of the cost of production on those people who buy content. Maybe if piracy persists at the scale it does, enough people will get sick of paying for it and then we'll see a lot less money going into producing the content. No more big budget movies or sports extravaganzas*

(*This is usally where some snob comes in and says how modern culture is trash anyway. Before pirating the shit out of it).

"1. that prices of content are much higher than they would be if copyright were a mere 5 years, for example."

Defintely wrong. If you have less of a period you are allowed to make money during, then you will try to make more during that period. If you know you can't sell copies of a film next year, then you increase the cost of it for this year. Besides, being unable to profit reduces the incentive to keep producing that content, re-releases, etc. Instead, the content fades into history because the moment anyone tries to invest the effort into re-marketing it, cleaning it up for Blu-ray, whatever; others could take what they've done and re-distribute it for free. Thus, content could actually be lost.

"2. that most people only get paid when they work. say you do job automation, do you get recurring payments for life+99 years everytime someone wants to run your script?"

For jobs that require a lot of initial investment or development time, this model is actually necessary. For example, I could spend a year writing a software application. How am I making money by doing that? I'm not. It's an investment based on the expectation of being able to make the money back by selling the product at the end. So for someone to spend a year writing software, it is necessary that they are able to sell copies later *after* they have stopped working. Or to put it another way, yes, we need to be able to charge people "when they run my script".

Re: @h4rm0ny cult of celebrity

PyLETS wrote: "Well, you're the one who's post started accusing the other side to this debate of religious irrationality. Sauce for the gander to respond in kind given the laughable character of the goose's quacking"

It doesn't work like that. If someone accuses you of doing something you are actually doing, that doesn't justify you accusing them of the same thing if they're not. I'm confident that what I wrote is rational argument. Your latest post is now talking about how the Bible teaches us not to idolise celebrities. (Again, is even worth pointing at this stage that you're the only one charging this strawman about hard done by celebrities? The rest of us are talking about businesses.)

PyLETS wrote: "My primary guide here comes from a more ancient source than the longer lasting laws still governing human relations which were derived from this. The Bible survived..."

This and the entire attached paragraph it comes from is so warped it would take a whole page to unpack all the false assumptions it makes and fallacies in it. But briefly, you made an attack on copyright law saying it's a relatively recent invention in human history (well, if you think several centuries is relatively recent). I pointed out that recentness doesn't make something invalid and gave several legal examples (e.g. against domestic abuse). You've responded by saying just because something is recent doesn't make it valid. Well yeah, the point is that if recentness isn't the determining factor then your attack about how copyright law is only a recent thing (by which you mean 400 years) is wrong from the start. You arguing that recentness is irrelevant, is arguing against yourself. Though you later on change your position and start appealing to authority of tradition and age once more when you start talking about what the Bible teaches us.

PyLETS wrote: "The Bible survived because people didn't need to contact and clear rights with dead authors' estates to authorise the copying of it. From your perspective you may dislike its survival but I don't. It informs us that the worship of idols is sense destroying and enslaving"

Again, you're back to your original strawman. And this is becoming one of Nicolas Cage burning proportions. You keep making these ranty attacks on people for idolising celebrities. But oddly enough, no-one here is. We're talking about how pirates are getting things for free off the willingness to pay of other people like ourselves, putting the financial burden on us. That's consistently been the point I made from my first post and the first thing I wrote was that piracy-apologists immeditely brush aside the fact that they are doing this and instead try to create an argument that assumes the Content Industry is some a priori thing that just exists because it sounds more noble to be ripping off a studio or "celebrities" than the people who the money actually comes from. And that's repeatedly what you are doing. Your issue with "celebrities" is some weird monomania that was raised as a subject by you and which others don't really care about. My original example was some small press publishers of role-playing games finding they could no longer make a profit because of piracy. What Kim Kardashian et al. have to do with that, only your mind will ever know. :D

And as to my dislike at the Bible's survival. No, I'm happy for all historical works to survive from the Bible to Mein Kampf. We as a culture must learn from our mistakes. More straw laid at my door. Though to be honest, having the Bible's moral authority waved at me as a counter-argument in a debate about copyright, just brings us back to your posts being high on rhetoric and low on actual reasoning

PyLETS wrote: "but in a DRM controlled and strict copyright-enforced future, the mass extinction of much important cultural work becomes inevitable"

Wow. I think that's the first actual argument you've made that isn't based on your own personal assumptions. I don't think it is true though. Your example is a comedy TV show from the 1950s where some episodes have been lost? I think it's fair to say that the 1950s precedes DRM substantially. Therefore DRM is not responsible for these episodes being lost. Further, your argument is only a rationalisation. It's not to do with what is actually the case. For example, all of the movies and music being shared on the Pirate Bay is, as far as I know, available DRM-free to buy. Technically DVD's and Blu-rays have a sort of content protection on them, but it's not the device specific sort of DRM that would be relevant to what you say, it's stuff that is universally unlockable should "human culture" be in danger of using it . You can't possibly argue that

(a) the movies and albums being shared on Pirate Bay are in danger of being lost because of DeCSS, et al.

(b) that modern digital technology and interest in long-term sales by the content producers is comparable to the BBC sticking an old can of celluloid in a basement somewhere (in an era when they often broadcast live without actually recording, which shows what priorities were attached to it)

(c) that you haven't just come up with this reason as a post-act justification and that you seriously think we should suspend copyright or alter law because of this.

Let's be absolutely clear on this: DRM is a response to copy-right infringement. If we ever do lose parts of our heritage because of DRM (which is highly unlikely), it will be the fault of the pirates that brought about DRM.

PyLETS wrote: "Also if you take a few minutes to read my post more carefully, then perhaps instead of flying off your handle into your singular personal orbit, you may spot that far from being "blind to the fact that it's OUR money that funds the content's production", this post is proposing a more cost effective way to achieve the funding of content (by prioritising newer art through shorter terms based on the assumption of directing a given public purchasing budget for newer work instead of for older work, the latter having already been appropriately remunerated."

There are two issues with this. First I am not convinced that "PyLETS" is the best person to determine how much should be paid for content. We have a system to work that out in which people buy it if they think it's worth the money and don't if they don't. There will always be those who think something still isn't cheap enough. Secondly, as I pointed out elsewhere, the most heavily traded files on the Pirate Bay are all the latest things being taken for free. This simple fact shows that this isn't about copyright terms. That is, again, just another post-fact justifaction you have sought.

PyLETS wrote: "Your argument claiming those who enjoy content without paying for it are parasites: "thus it is us that the pirates leach off" seems to me as far off the wall as the idea that someone whose bedroom window happens to be next to a cricket ground from which a match can be watched without payment is "leaching off" those who buy tickets"

It's undisputable that those taking content for free are leaching off those who pay for it. Unless you think movies, music, books, software all just magically appear without funding. And that's true however it "seems" to you. The cricket comparison? Yes, it's the same principle. But taking the same principle and putting it in a vastly different context in order to make that principle appear wrong, is rather poor argument. Someone watching cricket from their bedroom window *IS* leaching off those that buy tickets. Do you think that 'wins; you an argument? No-one cares about four or five people craning their necks to see the cricket without buying a ticket. Why? Because the harm is minimal and the product is different (leaning out of the window as opposed to having a seat in the grounds). Mass, organized flawless reproduction of digital content that makes a direct competitor to legally purchased content? Not really the same as a few people leaning out of their windows, is it? Similar principle in the same way that a kid punching another in the play-ground is not a crime but someone hitting you with a glass in a pub is. Principle exactly the same but do you want the person in the pub simply told off by a teacher; or the child in the playground convicted for GBH? No? Then congratulations, you're now capable of taking a more sophisticated view of principle application that simplistic reduction ad absurdem. Now try applying it to piracy.

I would write more, but that's all I have time for. People can work out for themselves whether they agree with your rants about celebrities, the Bible, translating piracy into grossly different analogies and other rhetorical tricks. I think your posts here have done more to highlight the double-standards and false assumptions of piracy apologists than I could ever have done myself. So thank you. ;)

When someone is reduced to putting things in a completely different context to

Re: Creationsists

"Go to the iTunes store. The soundtrack album for the Titanic movie costs £7.99. Alternatively you can get the entire movie for only £6.99.

Why does an hour or so of music cost more than a couple of hours of film?"

You pay extra not to have to watch Titanic

Re: To the editors of The Registers.

Hey, off-topic and I apologise for that, but while there's a mod around, can I put in a plea to get rid of the Anonymous mask for anonymous posters. It's not the same thing and it's a bit untidy conflate the two.

Re: noodled24

"I've tried not to use any metaphors this time since when I do, they cause your neurons to misfire ;) ;) ;)"

It was more their innaccuracy that was bothering me really.

"Avengers stuff - well maybe they were comic book geeks. Or maybe they had kids. Who cares, it was an example."

I care. You used it as an example of how it was an advert for the toys and implied the studio was double-dipping into people's pockets somehow. I pointed out that the example was flawed in many ways. If you make the argument: "this is true because look at X", and then someone points out X isn't true, a response from you of "it was an example, who cares?" kind of shoots down the entire argument unless you want to find another film where you think costs just be lower or nothing because there is an associated product range. In fact, you'd have to show that this was generally true. If the Barbie movie helps stimulate toy sales, that hardly provides a justification to pirate Chronicle or Corillanus. The entire line of argument is flawed in several ways. It's just nonsense really. If anyone wants to take the business model of "here's the content for free, now please buy associated merchandise" then they are absolutely free to do so. Copyright doesn't stop them. But for you personally to insist others must use your (frankly unworkable) business model, is inappropriate.

"Although granted in your eyes any child who doesn't have the available funds to view said content should be excluded from the fun."

And here, even though you've been persuaded to drop outlandish metaphors, you still can't resist making your arguments based on personalised emotive examples. We discuss piracy in the general and you create your literal poster child of a poor kid who is being excluded from fun by mean anti-piracy types. So what are you saying? Whenever parents couldn't afford something their child wanted, it's okay to grab it without paying? Or that all pirates are poor children disadvantaged and its their basic entitelment to a copy of any movie they want? Way to teach a child ethics and about working for something, btw.

Again, not only silly arguments, but ones now deliberately created to personify and persuade by creating victim imagery. Given that you began by writing a four paragraph rant against those making arguments by personifying and creating victim imagery for celebrities (which no-one here had actually done, amusingly), it's both ironic and hypocritical for you to use such tactics in support of your own viewpoint, is it not?

"CDs - Browse HMV. Or anywhere that sells CDs. They're overpriced. Consumers are only too aware that CDs have been over priced for years."

So if you make a product and want to sell copies at price X and a crowd of people come along and say: "X is too much, we're taking it for free", you'd be happy? You're a liar if you say you would be. And yet you think you should decide how much other people can sell something for. Because you know best! There will always be people who want things to be cheaper than they are. Right? Should these people be the ones that get to choose how much something is sold for? At that point, things would always be sold for £0.00. No? Okay, so perhaps it should be a group decision. We could use a system whereby, oh I don't know, people vote with their wallets. Too high, don't buy, prices come down. But they only sink to the level at which people are willing to pay. Hmmm. Isn't that what we have?

Unless of course people are forced to buy the product because it is an essential, like heating or food or water. Movies and books aren't essentials? Well then I guess voting with the wallets really does determine what the market will bear. So just because you think CDs are overpriced, doesn't mean your opinion is a justification for taking them for free.

"Creation and transfer of MP3s costs next to nothing. Albums and singles are just adverts for the live shows"

This is below stupid. "Creation" of MP3s costing nothing assumes the music appears from nowhere. How about you factor in the recording time, the years of study. I'll tell you what, if someone asked you to debug a device driver for them and you spent all day on it and then they said: "but the cost of you sitting at a keyboard all day was nothing, just some electricity, here's 5p", would you be happy? I wouldn't. So go ahead, find me an argument against that that isn't also an argument against a musician. Seriously, you think you can put the argument that "creation and distribution of MP3s is next to nothing" and that all the effort, skill and costs that went into making it just get lost in the detail?

It's a nonsense, dishonest argument to focus on the distribution medium and claim this is more important than the content itself. Your suggestion that "You can write, compose, record, and distribute a whole album from one laptop (if you wanted)" illustrates how disingenuous you are being. Certainly that is technically true. Does it have any relevance to 99.99% of the albums out there that weren't? No, of course it doesn't. Your assertion that "Albums and singles are just adverts for the live shows" is just your point of view. I buy far more music these days than I go to to hear at live shows. Who are you to say that this is how things must work and that all musicians must bow to your ideas of acceptable business models? If a group want to give away their music for free and make all their money from live shows, then copyright law doesn't stop them. If what you say were actually the case then the artists actually would be giving away their music. And yet they don't. So clearly they disagree with you. And that is their choice. And note how you have reflexively gone back to the music industry, when we were discussing movies. Is the Avengers just an ad for live performances? Oh wait, I forgot. You think it's just an ad for toys. Yes indeed, everyone is going to rush out and buy plastic figures where the real value lies! What the fuck? Do you not see that your entire idea of an advert having more value than the thing it is advertising is economically and logically insane? And yet you have asserted that this is the case. My Basement Jaxx album (yes, I'm showing my age), which has been played many times, has more value to me than actually seeing them perform (I mean, they're music is remix based. You think they're doing all that on stage with laptops? Well you probably do). And yet you seem to think that something more valuable is "just an advert" for something less valuable. I'm having flashbacks to Bill Hicks talking about Dinosaur Fossils, here: "God put them there to test us!" :D

More nonsense: "The amount people spend to create that content is down to them."

Yep. And they spend the money because they can sell it. Again, the twisted logic which attempts to avoid that it is other people's money that is being spent to create that content, through purchases, and an attempt to discuss only this idea you have of some Industry as if it wasn't the money of everyone who is willing to pay going in, because you think you sound more noble ripping off an evil profit-laden "Industry" than the shoppers who the money actually comes from and which pirates freeload off. Go ahead - try and make a case that the money the pirates freeload from isn't coming from the people buying products. That content producers are just inherently rich.

"The simple truth is that the majority of "pirates" are poor people. Who wouldn't rather go and see a film in 3d on the big screen. But many can't afford it. Constant marketing, and denial of "content". Of course people bend the rules."

I don't think there's anything about that "truth" that is simple. I live in a mix of demographics, but of the reasonably well-off people I know - programmers and technical people with jobs paying at or significantly above the national average, piracy is pretty common. And the amounts downloaded are huge. You suggest that it is someone too poor to go and see a 3D movie. The reality is that people download dozens of DVD rips. At what point does your sense of entitlement end? When you've said: "I am too poor to afford this £100 worth of DVDs, I'll just download them". £200? £1000? Someone who has grabbed thirty DVDs to watch is not making a case that it's socially unfair for them to not have been given those DVDs so they're entitled to take illegal copies. They're luxury goods. This is your final argument. One that presupposes a basic right to a copy of someone else's work. Your sense of entitlement is out of control.

Re: cult of celebrity

Well that's one of the most bizarre strawmen pieces I've ever read. I have to say, amanfrommars does it a lot better.

Basically, you rail against a cult of celebrity despite no-one in this discussion so far as I can see doing this wailing about the starving celebrities that you seem to have written four paragraphs repudiating. No one has talked about celebrities being different to "ordinary mortals" except for you. In fact, I think yours is the first mention of "celebrities". My post to which you've replied was actually talking about pirates leaching off US - i.e. the people whose money funds all this content and whom the pirates benefit from without sharing the financial burden. You've done exactly what I said would be done in my first post: created an argument completely blind to the fact that it's OUR money that funds the content's production and thus it is us that the pirates leach off. Instead, as I said you would, you've gone straight for an argument that treats the content industry as this magical discrete entity that just exists (and is evil) rather than actually being something a lot of people have put their money into because they want this content to exist. You were obviously just looking for an opportunity to put your argument out there, even when that argument didn't fit. The examples I used in my post were small press publishers of role-playing games and (iirc) The Avengers movie. So... what? You think people are buying tickets to see that movie because they're indoctrinated members of your "Cult of Celebrity", not because they might actually have an interest in seeing it? No, I think you just tied your rant to my post even though it didn't actually fit as a reply because you wanted to rant.

If we strip away all the unsupported rhetoric about how sermons and guilt trips and idols (none of which have been actual arguments here), we find two very sparse actual arguments in your post.

1. "Don't even allow yourself to consider for a moment that copyright is a recent law in the scale of things and laws are by their nature political"

So recentness invalidates a law does it? So laws against beating your partner (either sex) or sacking someone for being gay or the Geneva Convention... all more recent than copyright law (which goes back a pretty long way)... these are invalid because they're recent? No? Okay so your actual logical principle that forms the basis of the above doesn't make sense. The law is by nature political? So copyright applies to some political factions but not others. No? It's non-partisan? Well perhaps it applies only to some classes and not others. No? Any writer regardless of who they are qualifies for the same terms for their work and period of expiration after their death? Well in that case, maybe it's no more a political law than a law against murder or theft and you just said what you thought sounded good.

2. "Copyright, so we are told, is "a human right" of artists, clearly not shared by ordinary mortals."

Copyright is applicable to all of us. For example, many people here have written saleable software. They are able to be paid because of copyright law. Perhaps they are not "ordinary mortals". Well, those of us who can program in C++ aren't, I'll grant you that. ;) But I don't think that's what you meant. I think you were just off on your perculiar and UNPROVOKED rant about your "cult of celebrity".

You did comment on how you objected to authorities pushing to inspect our Internet traffic. I'll agree with you on that one and some of us who have been politically active in trying to oppose that would have had a Hell of a lot easier job doing so if it hadn't been for the large numbers of people committing wide-spread copyright infringement and providing half the justification for it.

Re: noodled24

Yes, this is the tortured, Creationist-style logic I referred to. In essence your post is: 'I pirate it because it's shit'.

Or argument like how Avengers is wrong to charge so much because it's actually an advert for the toys. Yes indeed. I was in a showing with several hundred adults and I'm sure they all rushed out to buy little plastic figures thus letting the studio recoup the fortune it cost to make.

As to your befuddlement at a CD costing more than an MP3 album, firstly, you missed off the specific album. I assume that you're comparing the same album in the two different formats and not being dishonest I hope? And these prices are similarly from the same seller because you know different places sell things at different prices? And this is a newly release album because you are aware that prices change over time and there aren't a legion of super-robots making sure everything is updated simultaneously everywhere all the time and you are aware that often with physical media content producers have to guesstimate eventual sales and sometimes over-produce and therefore discount a product in order to partially recoup their investment. As with, for (just to pick a completely random example) CDs?

The stuff about how "a plant growing from the earth is not content" is so dislocated from being a intelligible argument it's hard to actually address. Yes - a photograph of a plant can be art, even though the photographer did not create the plant. In fact, it's very common for photographers not to create plants. I have some startling news for you about portraiture also. ;)

Re: Creationsists

"Why go to itunes and get a product that only works with a single manufacturer's equipment and I can't freely transfer from device to device when the MP3 from the file sharers has none of those restrictions?"

I have this hunch that it's been a while since you actually PAID for music. Whenever I buy music online, it comes down the pipe as a high-quality MP3 that I can do what I like with. Amazon sells them this way, so does Zune. I've got quite a few of them going back a few years. Movies tend to be DRM'd but then, really, is the inconvenience of buying something from a shop or waiting a day for delivery now the justification for not paying at all? If it is, then surely one could download it whilst waiting for the movie to arrive, but I'd lay money that's not what most downloaders are doing.

"For all the creative industries cries of innovation they are still wedded to old pricing models. When a CD cost £10, governed largely by the costs of manufacture, exces stock, and distribution (including fat margins along the way) you needed a certain level of profit per copy to preserve your magins. When the cost of distribution reduces to approximately nothing the prices didn't change too much - it was all additional margin"

I don't think so. Six years ago, I could easily pay over a tenner for a CD. Now an album purchased typically as a download costs me around £7.99. And in that time, the price of other things has actually risen. Food has gone up by about 20% over the last year or so alone. Inflation is the bringer of pain. And it's easier to pick and choose songs from an album too so even though they're a few pence more than if you buy them in bulk, I still end up paying less than I used to. Besides, what makes you an authority on how the costs of distribution compared to production of the content, etc. break-down? If I buy a song on CD or as a download, they're both going to end up as files on my hard drive. The download version is actually more convenient for me yet costs less. I see positives here, to be honest. I'm getting the same as I got before for less money and with less hassle. Anyone who complains the prices haven't gone down when they haven't gone up, needs to look into how prices of everything else have risen in the same time frame. I think you'll find that music and movies are competitive. Blu-rays have sunk down to being just a slight mark-up on DVD costs when they used to be double and I can easily find older DVDs for a fiver or less in HMV.

"Why hasn't the reverse happened? Why not encourage a gorge of consumption instead and charge 5-10p for that same album? Bundle them up - e.g. £5 per month for up to 50 albums, and people would be happy to pay for convenience."

Probably BECAUSE of piracy. The lower prices get, the fewer qualms people have about pirating them. Maybe that sounds counter-intuitive to you, but it's actually the case that if your product costs 5p, people think nothing of just downloading it free. Though I think you have an unrealistic idea of how low prices can go and be profitable. Take a small time band. If they're lucky, they might sell a thousand albums online (if they're lucky). For this, you would give them 5,000 - 10,000 *pence* by your figures. Let's pick the middle figure: you've said they've made £75 before taxes and hosting costs. That's slightly over an hour of time renting the recording studio down the road from me. Eek! There go the small time musicians. Lady Gaga might just squeeze out a living under your expectations of what is a fair price, but sucks to be a less world famous musician.

But this masks a different issue. You are setting yourself up as arbitrator of how much things should cost. You're saying to other people: your work is not worth what you think it is, it's worth how much I think it is. Do you think you're not? Well in that case, you should be looking for a system whereby people can work out how much they think something is worth as a group. Ah, wait. We have that - it's called the market. Charge more than people think it's worth, and people don't buy. Charge too little and the same people buy but would have given you more. Piracy is a way of opting out of negotiations and forcing the artist to sell at a price they have not agreed to. Again, sucks to be them.

"£60 each per year is far more attractive than three or four CDs per year picked up at Tesco."

I have that. Zune music pass. It's actually £7.50 per month and gets me an absolutely massive and growing selection of music that I can pull down onto any of the devices I own and play happily. There is DRM, but they've long since managed to make it all but invisible to me. So you've more or less got what you wanted there. It's a rental rather than a purchase, but if you want to purchase an album that you can play forever and ever and ever (as high quality MP3s without DRM), it's a bit more than a fiver.

Everything the pro-piracy people said they wanted in exchange to stop pirating, is now here. And to be fair, many people have stopped pirating and now buy. So that's good. It just leaves a few seeking ever more insane concessions in exchange for not taking people stuff for free. I'm of the opinion that such people just like taking things for free. :(

Re: Irony

I don't think Orlowski's intent is to help scammers target people whether they are pirates or not. Besides, someone dumb enough to pay for a torrent probably isn't reading El Reg. in the first place. (Probably).

Re: This all ignores the elephant in the room

"Nice post, although I do take issue with the use of the word "piracy" but that's just semantics."

Thank you. I also dislike the use of the term "piracy", though mainly because it makes copyright infringement sounds a lot more glamourous and romantic than it is. But if the Pirate Bay want to call themselves that, then they can. It's the term that everyone uses and unlike metric megabytes, etc. there's not a solid reason to argue against it... But anyway, on to the debate! :)

"I see Avengers 2012 on that list - can you please tell me how much that affected the box-office take? Because if I remember, it just broke lots of records."

I cannot tell you precisely how much it was impacted. Probably no-one can give a truly accurate figure. All it is reasonable to conclude is that it has been impacted to some degree. The guy I went to see it with commented that "I'm actually going to see this one at the Cinema" meaning the film was so good that he actually wanted the full experience rather than just downloading and watching on the computer. So maybe you should ask how less successful films are impacted, rather than just the biggest, most special-effects laden films. Unless you think only the biggest Studios and budgets should suffer less? If not, ask about the impact on other films. I remember trying to round up some people for a flim last year and most couldn't because they said they would just download it. If you're saying you wont believe that cinemas are impacted unless someone can give you a figure to the percentage point, you'll never believe it. I could dig out some figures but as the people who are best positioned to know this (the cinemas and the studios) would immediately be dismissed by biased people as biased (ironic), it wouldn't be accepted. Besides cinema takings are only a part of it because cinema gives you something that actually is different to what you download. DVD and Blu-ray sales are a very different matter because in this case, piracy actually can replace the purchase entirely. Some might argue that more people will buy the DVD because more have seen it online. The idea that people who avoided paying for it once will suddenly want to pay for it when they don't have to a second time, is pretty dubious, imo.

"Obviously that does not excuse copyright infringement one little bit, but it does bring into question just how much damage (if any) is actually being done."

I think the worst damage is done to Independents. The bigger you are, the more you can weather adverse conditions. But it varies by media. For example, I know some small press groups publishing role-playing games who basically don't even find it profitable to publish anymore because of piracy.

The question of how much damage is being done goes beyond the profits of the content producers. This goes back to my first post in which I pointed out that most of the pro-piracy arguments all suppose this a priori content producing entity and see the equation as Industry Money on one side and Public Mony on the other. This is plainly and obviously false. The industry money is wholely derived from public money - specifically from those willing to buy the content. Do pro-piracy advocates honestly think that if they push on one side of the industry, those supporting it on the other side don't feel that push? Do they think that the content publishers are this infinitely squeezable sponge that can be reduced to a profitless sliver of nothing? I honestly think they do. Rather than it being slightly firmer stuff that if pushed by piracy on one side, passes on that pressure to the purchasers of the content. And even it it were squashed to nothing and no studio made profit from any film and all the people involved magically worked for free, you'd STILL have the situation in which one large group of people were fronting all the money for these films and novels and songs, whilst another segment of society lived off the first and gave nothing back. That's the reality of the economics. You disliked the word piracy, as did I. Freeloader is the term that I actually prefer. It is, naturally, shunned in favour of pirate by those who support the activity of course. Yet freeloader is more accurate.

"I don't necessarily agree with TPB (although as a distribution service it is genius) but neither to I agree with the draconian legislation being mooted and forced through."

And this is one of my objections to them also. The activities of the Pirate Bay et al. make it very hard for the rest of us to oppose increasing monitoring and restrictions on the Internet. One day, we will urgently need those freedoms again, even in the West. And yet by persistent, wide-spread crime, the freeloaders have justified the taking away of those freedoms. Governments are by nature, evil things. They must, because of what they are, always seek control. But that control doesn't just appear. It is enabled by things such as complaints of content producers asking for such control. And it is a legitimate request for protection they make. So yes, it's not just that some are living off the honesty of others (and to greater or lesser extent passing the costs along through their unwillingness to share that cost), but that I see the erosion of anonymity and privacy accellerated because of them.

"Infringement has almost certainly always existed once it became technologically possible (and no, that does not make it right) but what harm has actually been caused? Companies have survived and grown from gramaphones thru LPs to tapes, videos, CDs etc and not a lot seems to have gone wrong."

Well as I said, I know people who can no longer make money doing something they love because of piracy. There's definite harm. There's also the dubious science of comparing our timeline with itself and saying: "what harm has been done". Well we cannot know that. But there's also the worse logic of thinking because something has been this way before, it will always be this way. Despite human history being full of game changers. Has there ever been a system by which anyone in the world can casually communicate with anyone else before? Has it ever been the case before that content could be reproduced and distributed with costs so small per unit that people aren't even aware of the cost per unit? Has it ever been the case before that decentralized, automated organizational systems for the requesting and delivery of content without a central actor was possible? No, none of these things. And each one is huge. And you bring forth the argument that 'it's always been that way, it always will'. The Internet is a huge blessing for small content producers. But piracy is not an intrinsic part of that blessing. It's the worm in the tequilla. (Some people will swallow that worm. Rational people have more sense.)

"I often wonder what history has to say about all this - what happened when the printing press landed and all the scribes' jobs were in danger; did they demand legislation/special treatment to protect their business? It's the closest equivalent I can think of."

Yes, entrenched producers always resisted change. The medieval guilds held back development for a long time. But your analogy is flawed. The content producers are HAPPY to lay off the scribes (plastic discs as a distribution method, post and packing, guestimating demand), just as they were happy when the "scribes" were cassette tapes being replaced with CDs. The flaw in your analogy is that it is not the scribes people are not wanting to pay for (e.g. the medium), but the content. People still want the content that the producers sell. They have just found a way to not pay for it.

Re: This all ignores the elephant in the room

Your entire post is basically about copyright terms. If you want to argue that copyright terms are too long, go ahead - you'll actually find many people agreeing with you. But tell me which of the top 22 video results on The Pirate Bay (checked just now) are about people protesting copyright terms:

How I Spent My Summer Vacation HDTV XViD.AC3-ART3MiS

21 Jump Street 2012 R5 NEW LiNE XViD - INSPiRAL

This Means War 2012 DVDRip XviD-SPARKS

The Avengers 2012 CAM V2 XViD-26K

Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows (2011) DVDRip XviD-MAX

Mission Impossible 4 Ghost Protocol (2011) DVDRip

Gone[2012]BRRip XviD-ETRG

Chronicle 2012 DVDRip XviD-SPARKS

Treasure Island 2012 DVDRip XviD-EXViD

The Avengers 2012 HDCAM NEW XviD-HOPE

Coriolanus[2011] LiMiTED BRRip XviD-ETRG

Thor (2011) DVDRip XviD-MAX

Captain America The First Avenger (2011) DVDRip XviD-MAX

We Bought a Zoo 2011 DVDRip XviD-NeDiVx

American Pie Reunion 2012 TS XVID V3 - WBZ

The Grey (2012) DVDRip XviD-MAX

Contraband.2012.DVDRip.XViD-NYDIC

Red.Tails.2012.DVDRip.XviD- SPARKS

Man on a Ledge 2012 PROPER DVDRip XviD-SPARKS

Haywire[2011]BRRip XviD-ETRG

The Hunger Games 2012 TS READNFO XViD-sC0rp

The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo 2011 DVDSCR XviD AC3-FTW

If you want to argue that works from twenty years ago should now return to the public domain, we can have that debate. But please do not imply that it is relevant to what the overwhelming majority are actually doing with piracy - that's just a post-fact attempt at justification.

Re: Restriction of ideas is silly

None of the patent debate of course, being impacted by the Pirate Bay. So why bring it up? Patents and copyright differ significantly.

Re: Drivel - As Usual

"The "freetards" are not against copyright, they are against the misuse of copyright."

Okay. Quick test of hypothesis. Which do the patrons of the Pirate Bay most use it for? Distributing copies of books from the 1950's which they feel should now have returned to the public domain, or for obtaining the latest blockbuster, comic or TV show that came out this month?

"Unlike Mr orlovski I work in the creative industry, I actually create unique works. I expect to have rights to my work. But that does not mean I don't get bloody angry when I see copyright being used as nothing more than a tool to restrict freedom, make money and criminalise ordinary people."

And here we have the Appeal to Authority argument: "I am a small content producer". What does that mean? You've published a novel, recorded an album? What about all the "small content producers" who would disagree with you? I know people who publish role-playing games and they have been hit very hard by piracy. Widespread and organized piracy creates a less hospitable environment for content publishers. That is worse for small content producers than for the big ones that can weather the storm more easily. Your post is high on rhetoric and statements that you know best because you're X, but low on logical argument, to me. We should be having a golden age for small content producers and independents with the marketing and reproduction abilities of the Internet and we are to some extent. But lack of copyright enforcement demonstrably hinders that. I suspect we're about to see an argument about how freely distributed work helps raise awareness for the small content producer. To which I make the same response that I always have: if you want to use such a business model, copyright law doesn't stop you. It just gives you a choice whether you want to use that model or not. So if you really think that "not restricting freedom" is a good thing for content producers, then copyright isn't a bad thing because you're not forced to use it.

"Mr orlovski may be happy to live as sheep in the warm comfort of illusion. Thankfully there are the "freetards" who bring to light abuses of copyright because they possess a quality Mr orlovski does not - courage."

I'm finding it an odd juxtaposition how you take such a polite form of address for MR. Orlovski whilst insulting him so personally. Anyone who wants to be praised and told how right they are by people who want to be told taking things for free, can easily do so. Is telling movie downloaders what they want to hear "courage"? Standards have slipped if that's the case. Or you can speak your mind and get called a "sheep living in the warm comfort of illusion" instead. Clearly wanting to be insulted is a sign of moral cowardice in your mind? Or do you have some weird, very weird idea, that criticising copyright law is an act of bravery that defies authority? In which case, well done. I'm sure you have risked the MPAA bashing down your door and beating you up by doing so. Your "courage" is impressive. Because that's totally what happens.

Re: Creationsists

"I will have to point out that you skipped on one important argument that the industry is refusing to address: Regional lock on physical and digital goods."

Ahh, now there I agree with you. Regional lock-ins are a pain in the arse. They're one of the "legitimate" arguments for piracy. (Quote marks because by legitimate, I mean a case can be made). Of course the ethical thing to do with that is, if pirating, to purchase it when it does become available. But yes, a good point. Happily, I think that is radily eroding. Not fast enough, but eroding. It's particularly a good thing for those in rich countries (or ones where we get heavily rripped off like the UK) because it forces prices down to more of an average. It's bad for poorer countries, because they find goods being priced upwards higher than the optimal that they're local market would bear.

Re: Restriction Of Ideas Is Silly

You seem to have heavily confused Patents and Copyright.

My university researches a new type of a silicon manufacturing process and wants to licence it to others: patent law.

We make the Avengers movie and want to stop people distributing it without paying: copyright law.

Pirate Bay is about people getting The Avengers without paying. Not assisting humanity by freeing technological progress. Your post appears to be addressing a patent debate.

Re: Elephant Trap

That's what ran through my mind when I read this as well. It's a nice idea. Be your own fall guy and take down the others with you.

But I think it's not that. It could be, but there are fairly logical reasons to account for what MS is doing without that sort of play being the motivation.

It's probably too late to get some actual facts into this story, but I'm sure I'm not the only one curious about how exactly Mozilla say they're being blocked from releasing their browser on WOA. (And we should all remember, this applies ONLY to ARM devices. The bulk of W8 installs can carry on as normal). Basically, Mozilla (and anyone else) can create as many browsers for WOA as they want. What they're saying is that they wont be able to compete with IE on those devices because IE has access to APIs that they do not. This is a bit of a cut and paste from my previous post on the subject, but the information is the same, so I might as well:

I think this is more about user experience than trying to lock out other browsers. I think we all know that browsers and OS are becoming ever more linked, to the point that in some cases (ChromeOS) they actually are the same thing. MS had Windows Active Desktop long ago which was an early step down this road.

With OS and browser becoming ever more entwined, IE10 is gradually becoming an extension of the OS. And on ARM that is even more so given that WOA lacks the combo-Win32 and Metro API access that the desktop version does. So basically, either MS give up the whole sandboxed, more limited API model they planned to use in WOA for installable applications (i.e. installable Apps have the same access as things they make themself - pretty bad for security and not something anyone else is doign), or they cast themselves on the other side of it and say that nobody including themselves, gets to have a closely integrated OS-browser model. At which point they get pummelled by groups like Google and Apple who have no objection to doing this sort of close integration.

After a little digging I found a few references to what the Firefox crew feel is missing. Apparently they wont be able to spawn separate processes, which they use for things like sandboxing plugins, and making memory writable (directly, I presume) which they use for improving Javascript performance.

It is bad that there is less choice. But at the same time, I can see why Windows, on a tightly controlled device like a tablet (again, remember that we're only talking about Windows on ARM, here) want to prevent installable Apps that spawn multiple processes at will and directly fiddle with the memory. Essentially, they trust themselves to do that, but not to let any old random App writer to have that sort of power. Are Firefox "any old random App writer"? Well, if not, how do you decide that the next person who wants the privileges isn't the same?

Re: Microsoft never did comply

I have a Nokia Lumia 710. (Bought, not a freebie). I really like it. The WP7 interface is really good, imo. Also, taking the piss out of people for their phones? Really?

Re: Serious Question

It's more about user experience, probably. I think we all know that browsers and OS are becoming ever more linked, to the point that in some cases (ChromeOS) they actually are the same thing. MS had Windows Active Desktop once upon a time which was an early step down this road (wow - do they look prescient now!).

Anyway, with OS and browser becoming ever more entwined, IE10 is gradually becoming an extension of the OS. And on ARM that is even more so given that WOA lacks the combo-Win32 and Metro API access that the desktop version does. So basically, either MS give up the whole sandboxed, more limited API model they planned to use in WOA for installable applications, or they cast themselves on the other side of it and say that nobody including themselves, gets to have a closely integrated OS-browser model. At which point they get pummelled by groups like Google and Apple who have no objection to doing this sort of close integration.

Incidentally, after a little digging I found a few references to what the Firefox crew feel is missing. Apparently they wont be able to spawn separate processes, which they use for things like sandboxing plugins, and making memory writable (directly, I presume) which they use for improving Javascript performance.

It is bad that there is less choice. But at the same time, I can see why Windows, on a tightly controlled device like a tablet (remember, we're only talking about Windows on Arm, here) want to prevent installable Apps that spawn multiple processes at will and directly fiddle with the memory. Essentially, they trust themselves to do that, but not to let any old random App writer to have that sort of power. Are Firefox "any old random App writer"? Well, if not, how do you say who is?

Re: This could easily backfire on them

"indows tablets will anyway be aimed at either business users - who are very happy with IE - or typical Joe Public types who have no idea what a Browser is."

I would love this to be the case. But I fear that it may not be. I've wanted a business-focused tablet for a while, but I suspect MS will be creating a consumer-focused device. And that probably makes sense: tablets are ideally suited to lying on a sofa browsing the web, but much less so hammering away at spreadsheets or bashing out countless emails..

Re: That's because Apple aren't restricting their users to IE.

I really like IE9 too, but choice is still good for those that want something else. I'd be interested to have read more about what "critical" functionality Mozilla feels is being denied. Presumably this is the graphics accelleration?

Re: Anonymous take out the Kremlin

"Three days later, the KGB/SVR take out Anonymous..."

Right. Because the Russian's have the ability to send hit squads barging into hundreds or thousands of family homes across the USA and Europe.

Re: Official Climate Sceptic Rules

"Would you care to point to the post where I did any such thing?"

Certainly.This whole paragraph you wrote:

//Begin Quote

"You realise that GFZ sucks up a fair slurp of the european climate gravy train? And that this study relies on proxies for past climate? And that it uses standard long-term computational models?

By any one of those three measures it is "not real science" according to official climate sceptic rules."

//End quote.

Basically it makes an attack on the presumption that AGW-skeptics discount evidence showing that the climate has changed. Despite some of the most significant and reliable evidence that the climate has changed recently being funded by such hate-figures as the Koch Brothers. The entire paragraph falls apart as an attack when (or in your case if) you realize that AGW-skeptics don't claim (except a lunatic fringe which all groups have) that the climate isn't changing, but that we are skeptical about the causes of it. Your entire thing above sets up this strawman that AGW-skeptics are saying the climate never changes and are being proven wrong by this evidence that it does. When in fact, we don't argue that the climate never changes, we say we're not really convinced as to the cause which the above is irrelevant to.

Re: Blinkered vision

"With that attitude, we should be able to carry on pumping CO2 into the atmosphere without a thought for what effect that will have when the sun picks up again."

There are some very good reasons to move off fossil fuels that have nothing to do with AGW theories. Primarily, fossil fuels are finite and running out. We need more nuclear power and fast.

Re: In the battle of CPUs, they focus on GPU?

The reality in most offices, is that most office workers now have enough processing power for all their needs. Progression at this point - for a company buying for most of its employees - is going to be about energy consumption and purchase cost (primarily the latter, outside of the server market). And AMD have always been competitive in terms of cost. They're doing well on energy consumption too. I have a fanless AMD board running my home server (M1 Hudson) and it draws very little power. It would be plenty powerful enough to act as someone's day to day work machine as well (if they were just doing spreadsheets, etc.). Cost about £150 incl. processor, memory, etc. (Rather more for all the high-capacity hard drives, mind you)

So I think AMD already are competitive with Intel for most business desktop users. I think the focus on the GPU side of things is because it helps them be competitive in the home and portable market. APU is significantly better in both cost and power consumption, than CPU + GPU. That's a plus for laptops and tablets. And better graphics is also a plus for the home market. Not everyone can afford (or wants) to buy a Radeon 7970 graphics card. But the AMD chips come with graphics that are better than an Xbox built in. They make great media centres or light games machines. Basically, AMD can't compete with Intel for high-end performance right now and they've admitted this. But they've found an edge they can exploit and they're going for it. I think they'll actually do pretty well.

Re: and still they

I agree with you that I would love to see AMD matching Intel chips at the high-performance end, but it's not going to happen in the immediate future. What AMD are doing, and they've been open about this, is taking on Intel at the medium to low end. And they have the better solutions here! Bulldozer / Piledriver architecture is very well suited to the server market, being extremely paralllel. The APU designs provide integrated graphics in a way that Intel simply cannot match. And that gives them a massive edge in ultraportables, tablets and home computers other than the enthusiast market. Yes, a hard-core gamer with lots of money is going to have the latest separate graphics card, but right now I can buy a motherboard with onboard processor and integrated graphics for £100. And it's capable of games playing, HDMI output, SATA 6Gb/s, et al. Intel just can't match AMD for anything other than the enthusiast or very high performance market, where they win. Even my six-core AMD 1100T is plenty powerful enough for all my needs outside 3D modelling, and I run two Linux VM's within Windows 7 on it!

So we might see AMD best Intel in performance some day, but right now they're focusing on what they need to do which is besting Intel at the middle and low-end market which is probably larger anyway. If AMD can get their production problems sorted and actually meet demand, then I think they're going to do great. Bulldozer is a 1st gen of an actual new design, not another iteration of an old one. So it's had a few bumps, but equally it has a lot more room to grow and I think it will. I'll probably get one of the Piledrivers when it comes out. That's another nice thing with AMD. The latest chip will just drop right into the same socket my non-Bulldozer chip currently sits on: no m/board or memory replacement. Another big saving! :)