Pirates, eh?

Naughty swashbuckling rogues with a friendly gleam in their eye who are just doing their best to combat the injustices of a harsh and greedy software business? After all, who hasn't done a little bit of "try before you buy" once in a while - and maybe even occasionally forgotten the "buy" part?

Well, that's as maybe... but pirates aren't romantic heroes at all... they are, not to put too fine a point on it, cunts. Complete and total ones, down to the last pube and beef curtain.

Imagine a nice sunny day, and a green field, and in that field, a pretty sheepie. Imagine that fluffy sheepie being offered a nice Digestive biscuit. Imagine the happy gleam in the sheepie's eyes, the little furry mouth opening in expectation as the biccie is proffered... then imagine that the biscuit is cruelly snatched away at the last moment. Poor sheepie. But that's what pirates do - they steal the biccies from the very mouths of pretty sheepies. And that, I am sure you will agree, is the act of a cunt. A complete and total one.

You may think it's OK - after all, we all borrow books off our mates? Most of us, in this internet age, copy music, don't we, if we are honest about it? People visit and shiny circular objects find their way into drives and get ripped to the server. The God of Bandwidth smiles on you at night and servers get leeched. And yet we don't feel the sprouting of labia, do we? In fact we justify the act by saying how sharing music makes us more inclined to buy new music, since we get exposed to new bands that we otherwise might not have heard - and indeed that is true; one isn't a complete cunt for doing that. Perhaps one is only a quarter-clitoris and a couple of damp pubes.

It's not the same for us in the software biz though. When you discover a band, typically you will go and buy all their albums, and keep an eye out for any new ones too. But in the software biz it's not like that. Nobody's going to discover your latest game and then go out and buy the back catalogue, are they? For one thing, most of the time that isn’t even possible. The commercial life of a game is a fleeting thing... you grunt and stink and sweat for a couple of years to create the thing, then it has its few moments in the sun (or on the shelves of Game, at least) and then just a few short months later it's pretty much all over. You might get a few residual sales trickling in but soon enough hardware change rolls around and obliterates the revenue source forever. And buying originals off Ebay is just as bad, you’re lining the pockets of the Power Sellers while we, who create the games, get nothing.

Yes, there is too much software out there, and yes, a lot of it is shit, so it is inevitable that one sometimes seeks to try before one buys. But it's oh so easy to forget to buy. And it's also easy to be so enthused about the game that you spread the love to your mates so they get to share the booty as well, but...

Imagine a cute fluffy puppy, frolicking happily and wagging its silly puppy tail. Imagine someone offering that puppy a lovely pig's ear. Think of the bright eyes and lolling tongue of the cute little puppy as the treat is offered, imagine the little nosie twitching in anticipation. then imagine that just as the puppy goes to take it, the pig's ear is harshly snatched away, and the bearer gives the poor little puppy a hefty kick in the nuts.

That is what pirates do - they snatch away pig's ears from the mouths of cute fluffy puppies and then kick them in the nuts, and it is, I am sure you will agree, the act of a cunt. An entirely complete one, perhaps covered in horse spoo stains, gaping and shiny with lube.

The very worst kind of pirate though is the kind that not only seek to rob you of your rightful income, but that seek to profit from your work as well. I have encountered these types many times in my career - people who hack your code and insert their own name and then sell the game as their own, spotty herberts in the schoolyard duplicating tapes and disks and banging them out to their peer spawn for money for sweeties, fat used-car-salesmen running dodgy software houses and selling illicit copies behind your back with the aid of their skanky cousin Kevin - these people… well…

read the rest at
http://www.wayoftherodent.com/guests/bob_yak5.htm

"Imagine a nice sunny day, and a green field, and in that field, a pretty sheepie. Imagine that fluffy sheepie being offered a nice Digestive biscuit. Imagine the happy gleam in the sheepie's eyes, the little furry mouth opening in expectation as the biccie is proffered... then imagine that the biscuit is cruelly snatched away at the last moment."

So this guy is trying to equate copying to stealing. COPYING IS NOT STEALING!!!

Please define what copying is then... I'm interested to hear your definition.

Copying is Copying. I would gladly give anything I ever owned to any one if them receiving it left me with the orginal or exact duplicate (making the orignal vs duplicate undeterminable).

God i wish we had a p2p for cars, computers, etc.

I could not say what Siskabush2004's definition is, but I would define copying thusly

copying- the act of reproducing or imitating something else. It does not need to be an exact dupllication however. One could be copying if a person using another item, object, electromagnetic entity, or other thing or idea, as a template for creation of something quite similar, or in fact so similar, as to be confused with the thing being copied.

For example, little Johnny imitates his grandfather. His sister, Jenny, is a very quick study, and is able on just seeing Johnny do his impersonation just once, can deliver a very similar copy of his performance.

In school, people can sometimes look on another person's page, and "copy" their answers, meaning they might write in the same answer, but it might be varied in wording slightly, or be written in a different handwriting style. Even though the end result may look quite different, it would constitute "copying" of someone else's answer.

Unfortunately, many dictionaries make the mistake of using the word "copying" or "copy" in the definition they give to copying.

Thus, to recapitulate, copying is a process by which takes one object,behavior,image,sound,image, or other real world manifestation, and creates something that echoes in some fashion, the original or target from which the copy has been made.

We know for example, that a "copy" from a "copying machine" is not a perfect copy. First of all, the paper stock itself is not the same as the original. If you are using a black and white copier and copying a color photograph, then we know that the result is not a perfect copy. Also, if copying machines produced perfect copies, theoretically, you could take a copy of a copy of a copy...many generations down, and it SHOULD be as good as the first, but we know that that is NOT what happens. But, if you take a black and white copy of an original black and white, on a cursory examination, it may SEEM like a perfect copy, but the visual sense can be tricked...

I hardly think that calling your oposition a cunt is damning. I have given the software industry much more money than they deserve. Copying is copying. It is not stealing because stealing is not copying. But your entire argument is mute because your beloved software industry is obsolete. You want some good software? Go to sourceforge.com its all free and it all works much better than most retail software. Games? No problem the net is loaded with free games that are just as entertaining as the retail games. I'm also not going to dig deep into my heart and find sympathy for "you software people" just because you show me a bunch of kuddly animals and tell me thats you. This article is really retarded.

But, asking what copying is, begs the question of what "stealing" is.
First off, stealing is generally not a legal term, but a colloquial term.
Theft however, is a legal term.

To understand the concept of theft, you have to understand that the United States legal system is based on English Common Law, but from a practial standpoint, our courts have been transformed by the globalists to be pseudo-Roman courts (there is one state who law is NOT based on English common law, and tha is Louisiana, which is based on Napoleanic codes).

"Theft (colloquially called stealing) is in general unlawfully taking someone else's property In general, a property is a characteristic or an attribute of an object or thing.


Within the law, property is a general legal category for rights of ownership in land, money, tangible objects, intangible objects, etc.

Property is defined as the right to use, enjoy or possess a determinant thing, and the right to exclude others from same.

Within the conceptual framework provided by law this control is assured by the power of the law, or by power exercised under the law, and not by any separate power. However, philosophically at least, it is possible to think of property concepts outside a legal framework - though, as in the Middle Ages, a legal framework for property might well emerge.

[Theft is usually considered a criminal act, as opposed to a tort]

According to Western jurisprudence, there must be a simultaneous concurrence of both actus reus ("bad action") and mens rea ("bad mind") for a crime to have been committed; except in crimes of strict liability. In order for prosecution, some laws require proof of causality, relating the defendant's actions to the criminal event in question. In addition, some laws require that attendant circumstances have occurred, in order for a crime to have occurred. Also, in order for a crime to be prosecuted, corpus delicti (or "proof of a crime") must be established.

Burglary is a crime related to theft. Burglary, a felony, involves trespassing, or entering a building with intent to commit any crime, not necessarily a felony or theft. Thus a conviction for burglary may qualify as a conviction under a three strikes law or habitual criminal law, even though only something of low value or nothing at all was stolen.

Laws in many jurisdictions impose much harsher penalties for burglaries committed or attempted at night, or upon an occupied residence.

Note: Larceny denotes a taking, by fraud or stealth, from another's possession; embezzlement denotes an appropriation, by fraud or stealth, of property already in the wrongdoer's possession.


Under English common law, larceny consisted of (1) a taking (2) and carrying away (3) of tangible personal property (4) of another (5) by trespass (6) with intent to permanently deprive.

In most of the United States the common law definitions of certain crimes have been modified. Quite often the general crime of theft has replaced larceny, and most related common law crimes such as embezzlement, false pretenses, robbery, and receipt of stolen property.

Looting is theft, taking advantage of special conditions such as a disaster, war, evacuation or blackout.

It is a crowd phenomenon that occurs when the police cannot control people.

In such an incident, security is very lax, largely because law enforcement are busy dealing with the actual problem. The collapse of infrastructure also makes it hard to protect property.

Looters see the disaster as an opportunity to better themselves without the risk of being caught. This may because a large number of other people are also looting, the fact that the property loss may be attributed to the actual disaster, and the feeling that other people will loot it eventually anyway.

Robbery is the crime of seizing property through violence or intimidation. This is different from embezzlement, larceny, and theft. Piracy is a type of robbery. Armed robbery involves the use of a weapon. Highway robbery takes place outside and in a public place. Robbery is generally an urban crime. Carjacking is the act of robbing a car from a victim, usually at gunpoint.

Criminal conversion, in criminal law, is usually defined as the crime of exerting unauthorised use or control of someone else's property. It differs from theft in that it does not include the element of intending to deprive the owner of the use of that property. As such, it is a lesser included offense of the crime of theft.


Synonyms are different words with similar or identical meanings. Antonyms are words with opposite meanings, thus antonym is the antonym of synonym.

An example of synonyms, which can never occur singly because each synonym must refer to another word, are the words cat and feline (as a noun). Each describes any member of the family Felidae. Similarly, if we talk about a long time or an extended time, long and extended become synonyms.
..... Click the link for more information. with larceny Larceny is a crime. Under English common law, larceny consisted of (1) a taking (2) and carrying away (3) of tangible personal property (4) of another (5) by trespass (6) with intent to permanently deprive.

In most of the United States the common law definitions of certain crimes have been modified. Quite often the general crime of theft has replaced larceny, and most related common law crimes such as embezzlement, false pretenses, robbery, and receipt of stolen property.

History of the common law

Theft is usually defined as the unauthorised taking or use Actus reus (from Latin, "bad act") is the action (or inaction, in the case of criminal negligence and similar crimes which are sometimes called acts of omission) which, in combination with the mens rea ("guilty mind"), produces criminal liability in common law based criminal law jurisdictions such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. According to criminal jurisprudence, there must be a concurrence of both actus reus and mens rea for a crime to have been committed.

Mens rea is a criminal law concept which focuses on the mental state of the accused and requires proof of a positive state of mind such as intent, wrecklessness, or willful blindness.
An illustration of mens rea would be the difference between hurting someone voluntarily and accidentally; in the first case, the mens rea, the intention to hurt, is present but not in the second one.

As with other common law crimes, it is composed of two elements, the actus reus — the unauthorized taking or use — and the intent to deprive — the mens reas. Thus if one goes to a restaurant and by accident one takes someone else's hat or scarf instead of one's own hat or scarf, one has deprived someone of the use of their property and has taken the other person's property in an unauthorized manner, but without the intent to deprive the person (hum, this is a much nicer scarf than mine or he'll never notice the spot on the hat until he gets home) there is no criminal act (actus reus) and thus no crime. Note that there may be civil liability, by depriving someone of their property you may be liable for damages in a civil court, but without proof of your intent to deprive, no criminal act has occurred."
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/stealing
-----------------SNIP-----------------------------------
So, under traditional English Common Law, but also the Napoleanic code, and even back as far as the Code of Hammurabi, the idea of theft involved the person who had something taken from him, being deprived of goods, value, usefulness, or in the case of a wife or pet, the companionship.

If you took a horse from someone in the Middle Ages without paying him for it, without returning it, and with the intent of not paying for it or returning it, you were being unjustly rewarded and the scales of Justice would find that there was crime, because the person not longer had the benefit of the object being there with him.

One must also understand that to have true theft, there must be the criminal intent, the mens rea...the intent to deprive a person of the object.

If you were a magician, and could walk by the same horse and make an almost exact copy, one that walked and looked much like the original, and walked away with it...but the original horse remained there to serve its master, no one would consider you a thief, because nothing was taken and there was NO mens rea...i.e. you had no intent to permanently deprive the man of his horse and did not in fact do so.

Even if you somehow deprived someone of something without paying them, the actus reus, but did not have the mens rea, the criminal intent, then no criminal act occurs under English law, and without a criminal act occuring, there can be no theft, because an act must be a criminal act if it is theft.

So, unauthorized copying may be copyright infringement, and thus be a
malum prohibitum (thing that is made wrong only by making a law or statute against it like running a redlight), but theft would be a malum in se, or thing that is wrong in and of itself.

Hope I did ok answering it...I had to cut myself short...Sci Fi Channel has the Flying Virus movie...

I agree purfus, the author does have some backward and less than holographic views on the topic.

Actually, I wanted Siskabush to answer it...

If someone copies a game, it does NOT prevent the copyright holder from selling other copies...it does not deprive the copyright holder of the actual originally created product, and if the person who copies did not intend to buy the product in the first place, there is technically not a lost sale.

Under these conditions, if Joe A. buys a legal copy. His friend, Rocky G. never would have bought it, but is offered a copy by Joe A., then no deprivation of the sale occurs, since Rocky G. was not going to buy it.
Furthermore, there is no mens rea on the part of Joe A. or Rocky G., and without mens rea, no crime.

cool...if Siskabush2004 wishes to provide an alternate definition of copying...knowing Siska...it shall be done.
I didn't know if Siska was gone for the evening or not.

If Siska doesn't return to the thread, at least a defintion has been provided.

I made a copy of a document from the government the other day...
it was not a copyright protected document....

I copied it...but did not steal it.
SOoooooooooo....that is just once instance copying is not stealing...
and if one exception exists....then one cannot use a global statement in truth that copying and stealing are the same thing.

I've actually seen people in law offices with officers present copy things...but the officers saw no reason to cuff them for theft

Oh, and the materials I spoke of in the last line (about the law office) above WERE copyrighted materials the people in the law offices were copying, and they did NOT have prior authorization from the copyright holder to copy those documents, but, again, they were not arrested for theft.

Here's a random thought (BTW, I am playing devil's advocate I am not taking any particular side in this arguement so please do not assume as such thank you):

Let's pretend you grow oranges in your fields and sell them to provide food, shelter and clothing for yourself/your family. You do not have any other source of income, and this is your livelihood...growing oranges.

One day, someone decides in the middle of the night to raid your orange grove, and steals several oranges from a tree. You don't notice the missing oranges and there is no effect.

The person tells his friends that he got these amazing oranges for free, and then the next night, he comes again and takes quite a lot more oranges and gives them to his friends.

Eventually, his friends go straight to the grove and take oranges themselves, including friends of their friends.

You, the orange grove owner, are now possibly noticing the effects of this uninvited orange grove invasion. Many of your oranges are not being bought because people already have them/don't need them. Maybe you still do not have a problem with inventory, but the sales are down. You have to fire some of your grove workers, and maybe tighten a belt notch? You may even have to stop living the lifestyle you've grown accustomed to living.


I'll be the first to agree with the concept (I have no proof of this) that the software industry, record industry, media/movie industry, etc..who all cry FOUL! about "stealing/theft/copyright infringement/copying/etc", whatever you want to call it, have PLENTY of money (of mine, for sure), and are probably just not happy with the fact that they aren't making AS MUCH as they might have been in the past.

I've met hard-liners that believe any downloaded/not paid for media is considered theft, and would never do it. I've met the exact opposite in the person who justifies their actions with rationalizations to make it ok.

Is it right? Is it wrong? Shit, I don't know...

If it were my orange grove, I'm sure there would be a part of me that would be pissed I wasn't making the money for the effort I was putting in/had put in with the purchase of the land, tending to the soil/trees/etc... On the other hand, if I'm making plenty of money already, then being a greedy bastard isn't cool either.

On the flip side, I can't rationalize the downloading, or "sharing" of media other than to say "greedy bastards have enough of my money already". If I download someone's tune, and I don't redistribute it for money, the artist hasn't "lost" anything, other than the "potential" income from the "potential" sale if I'd have bought it.

I think now about lawsuits where injury or death has occurred in a car accident, and the damages for lost work/wages comes about.

The dead/injured party who cannot work is granted a dollar amount in damages, paid to them/their family. These damage awards are based on POTENTIAL income in the case of a dead person. Say, for example, the dead person was a recent graduate of medical school...

Yes, they hadn't made much money/salary yet, but the POTENTIAL salary income for this doctor, oh we'll say he was a brain surgeon, is HUGE. So, his family is robbed of this HUGE income "potential". Their lifestyle is suddenly going to either become A: shittier or B: Stay the same.

And I guess that's what it's all about... The Industry doesn't want the shittier end of the stick. They want, at the least I'd wager, to stay the same (although in capitalist society, it's always the 10-20% increase per year we're really after, eh?)

Jeez...I gotta stfu.

Damn, I just thought of an even better orange grove scenario:

The person who took the original oranges takes the seeds from the oranges and makes their OWN grove. Now, people aren't coming to buy oranges from you, instead they are getting them for free from this other person. The people getting oranges from this other person makes THEIR own groves, and so on and so forth..

What if you just magically could copy the oranges and leave all original oranges where they were

That's an even BETTER analogy.

If there is NO mens rea...there is no crime.
If there is not intent to deprive...no mens rea.
If there is no actual deprivation...there is no theft.

It's an impossible argument to win even from a devils advocate standpoint.

If all copying is stealing, then all xerox machines are criminal devices, and this country is full of Kinkos which are enabling theft every hour of the day.

And, let's even go back to the Middle Ages when monks hand COPIED the bible...
under the copying without authorization from the copyright holder (except no one who actually authored the books of the bible could be a copyright holder because there were no Jewish copyright laws) theory, all the monks who copied the bible were copyright infringers, but without them, most agree today we would not have the bible in its form, nor books of any kind back then without the monks and their unauthorized copying .

"Oh, and the materials I spoke of in the last line (about the law office) above WERE copyrighted materials the people in the law offices were copying, and they did NOT have prior authorization from the copyright holder to copy those documents, but, again, they were not arrested for theft."

This probably ranks along the lines of using "common sense". If the police were to start arresting people for things such as this, our jails would be full. Actually, in most cases the jails are to Max capacity now in most places and people are complaining about it, laws being made to not allow past a certain capacity etc so on and so on....I'd like to know where in the hell they think they will put 60 million Americans that they classify as copyright infringers? Obviously, our government isn't thinking straight when it passes these laws criminalizing things. I guess they figure it makes more sense to release early those prisoners who raped, murdered etc in order to make way for locking up copyright infringers.

"But in the software biz it's not like that. Nobody's going to discover your latest game and then go out and buy the back catalogue, are they? For one thing, most of the time that isn’t even possible."

Bullshit! I'm a console gamer.. I sampled HALO via p2p.... i not only bought the game.. i spent $150 on a damn Xbox to play it!

what a shithead.

Good thing the Monks weren't living in a capitalist society, eh?

I guess first you need to recognize the prime mover behind all of this is the governments backing of copyright and the reason is MONEY (YAY!), and the subsequent reactions to breaking said LAWS involved. If the US of A was not a capitalist society, but instead a socialist one, then sharing of whatever would be considered proper, just and valid.

However, you are arguing that there is no crime or "crimal intent". There is a "crime" if the laws written by the governing body under which we/you live say it is/there is. The arguement (now called a debate), is weather or not you can find some loopholes in there to use to make it okie dokie...of which there may be many =)

"And, let's even go back to the Middle Ages when monks hand COPIED the bible...
under the copying without authorization from the copyright holder (except no one who actually authored the books of the bible could be a copyright holder because there were no Jewish copyright laws) theory, all the monks who copied the bible were copyright infringers, but without them, most agree today we would not have the bible in its form, nor books of any kind back then without the monks and their unauthorized copying ."

Yeah, and if it were a bad thing that the monks were copyright infringers.....I would think they would have been struck by lightning, eaten by a lion or something.

Just thought I'd add that.

I know someone who had a lawyer, a group of lawyers, actually enter their website, which was copyrighted, had a copyright notice on it, and a notice which said specficially this group of attorneys was not allowed to enter. THey were specifically notified they were not allowed to copy or reproduce any pages of this website owner. They did enter the website, downloaded copies, printed them out and used them in discovery in a lawsuit. The injured party complained to the bar as this was an obvious violation of both the DMCA and Copyright Act of 1976...they did nothing. It was appealed to the Supreme Court of the State, no wrongdoing was found. This is outrageous to me. This incident had nothing to do with money, but with plain and simple unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted material by people, who as officers of the Court, have a duty to avoid breaking the law.

I have read the entire DMCA, the entire Copyright Act, the entire NET act...even in the Net act...just proof someone copied material without authorization is not proof of criminal action.

I quote from the No Electronic Theft Act...
On December 16, 1997, President Clinton signed HR 2265 -- the 'No Electronic Theft' Act -- into law. The act, sponsored by Representative Goodlatte (R-Virginia), was passed in the House on 11/4/97 and in the Senate on 11/13/97.

HR 2265 was viewed as "closing a loophole" in the criminal law. Under the old statutory scheme, people who intentionally distributed copied software over the Internet did not face criminal penalties if they did not profit from their actions.

The act was strongly backed by the software and entertainment industries but opposed by science and academic groups.

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/hr2265.html
"(b) CRIMINAL OFFENSES- Section 506(a) of title 17, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:

(a) CRIMINAL INFRINGEMENT- Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either--

"(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or

"(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $ 1,000 shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.'.

NOW...you see something important>? "evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficent to establish willful infringement."

And, immediately prior to that we find:
"(a) CRIMINAL INFRINGEMENT- Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either--"

The term "willfully" means intent...as in mens rea.

If you want to believe that copying of music is theft...that's ok with me...but if you choose to support your belief by appealing to Supreme Court decisions which found that copyright infringement was not theft, or reading the laws about the difference between theft and copyright infringement, your efforts will be challenged by the obvious adverse imposition of legal theory.

There is civil copyright infringement, but theft is always a criminal act.
Thus, if there is copyright infringement that is NOT a crime, then all copyright infringement by definition is not theft, nor a criminal act.

This isn't a "loophole"....and, back to the monks..that society was in many ways a capitalist society...tradespeople,merchants, crafts people, professional people like doctors, charged fees for services, or fees for the items they sold...this ability to make a profit by selling your goods and/or services higher than what it costs you....is a capitalist idea. The merchant classes in Italy, and indeed in many parts of Europe, even countries ruled by kings or queens...were capitalistic as opposed to socialistic.

But, don't take it from me, what do others say about early capitalism?
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GLOSSARY/CAPITAL.HTM
"
Capitalism


Capitalism is a difficult, problematic term; it applies to a diversity of phenomenon spread across disparate historical cultures with substantially variable world views. However, the term is an Enlightenment European term used to describe European practices; so the term "capitalism" means more than just a body of social practices easily applied across geographical and historical distances, it is also a "way of thinking," and as a way of thinking does not necessarily apply to earlier European origins of capitalism or to capitalism as practiced in other cultures.
The earliest forms of capitalism—which we call "mercantilism"—originate in Rome, the Middle East, and the early Middle Ages. Mercantilism might be roughly defined as the distribution of goods in order to realize a profit. Goods are bought at one site for a certain price and moved to another site and sold at a higher price. As the Roman empire expanded, mercantilism correspondingly expanded. But the contraction of the Roman empire from the fifth century onwards also contracted mercantilism until, by the 700's, it was not a substantial aspect of European culture, that is, European economies tended to localize. Arabic cultures, on the other hand, had a long history of mercantilism, living as they did on the trade routes between three great empires: Egypt, Persia, and later Byzantium. As Islam from the seventh century A.D. onwards spread like wildfire across Northern Africa, Spain, the Middle East and Asia, Arabic mercantilism assumed an unprecedented global character. The medieval Europeans essentially learned mercantilism from their Islamic neighbors, evidenced in large part by the number of economic terms in European languages that are derived from Arabic, such as tariff and traffic. From the 1300's, Europeans would begin expanding their mercantile practices, resulting in a social mobility hitherto unseen in European culture as well as pushing Europeans, as it did the Muslims, to explore distant parts of the globe. The voyages of discovery were entirely driven by mercantile ambitions.

As time went on in Europe, mercantilism gradually evolved into economic practices that would eventually be called capitalism. Capitalism is based on the same principle as mercantilism: the large-scale realization of a profit by acquiring goods for lower prices than one sells them. But capitalism as a practice is characterized by the following:


The European Enlightenment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
The accumulation of the means of production (materials, land, tools) as property into a few hands; this accumulated property is called "capital" and the property-owners of these means of production are called "capitalists."

Productive labor—the human work necessary to produce goods and distribute them—takes the form of wage labor. That is, humans work for wages rather than for product. One of the aspects of wage labor is that the laborer tends not to be invested in the product. Labor also becomes "efficient," that is, it becomes defined by its "productivity"; capitalism increases individual productivity through "the division of labor," which divides productive labor into its smallest components. The result of the division of labor is to lower the value (in terms of skill and wages) of the individual worker; this would create immense social problems in Europe and America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The means of production and labor is manipulated by the capitalist using rational calculation in order to realize a profit. So that capitalism as an economic activity is fundamentally teleological.



General Glossary
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Economics
Modernity
Teleology

Enlightenment Glossary
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Classical Mechanics
Progress
As a way of thinking, capitalism involves the following: Capitalism as a way of thinking is fundamentally individualistic, that is, that the individual is the center of capitalist endeavor. This idea draws on all the Enlightenment concepts of individuality: that all individuals are different, that society is composed of individuals who pursue their own interests, that individuals should be free to pursue their own interests (this, in capitalism, is called "economic freedom"), and that, in a democratic sense, individuals pursuing their own interests will guarantee the interests of society as a whole.

Capitalism as a way of thinking is fundamentally based on the Enlightenment idea of progress; the large-scale social goal of unregulated capitalism is to produce wealth, that is, to make the national economy wealthier and more affluent than it normally would be. Therefore, in a concept derived whole-cloth from the idea of progress, the entire structure of capitalism as a way of thinking is built on the idea of "economic growth." This economic growth has no prescribed end; the purpose is for nations to grow steadily wealthier.

Economics, the analysis of the production and distribution of goods, has to be abstracted out of other areas of knowledge. In other words, capitalism as a way of thinking divorces the production and distribution of goods from other concerns, such as politics, religion, ethics, etc., and treats production and distribution as independent human endeavors. In this view, the fundamental purpose and meaning of human life is productive labor. Marxism, which has more in common with capitalism than it has differences, also bases itself on these ideas.

The economic world view treats the economy as if it were mechanical, that is, subject to certain predictable laws. This means that economic behavior can be rationally calculated , and these rational calculations are always future-directed . So, the mechanistic view of the economy leads to an exclusively teleological world picture; capitalism as a manipulation of the "machine" of the economy is always directed to the future and intentionally regards the past as of no concern. This, in part, is one of the fundamental origins of modernity, the sense that the cultural present is discontinuous with the past.

The fundamental unit of meaning in capitalist and economic thought is the object , that is, capitalism relies on the creation of a consumer culture, a large segment of the population that is not producing most of what it is consuming. Since capitalism, like mercantilism, is fundamentally based on distributing goods—moving goods from one place to another—consumers have no social relation to the people who produce the goods they consume. In non-capitalist societies, such as tribal societies, people have real social relations to the producers of the goods they consume. But when people no longer have social relations with others who make the objects they consume, that means that the only relation they have is with the object itself. So part of capitalism as a way of thinking is that people become "consumers," that is, they define themselves by the objects they purchase rather than the objects they produce. "

With deference to Richard Hooker for his great explanation above.

So, what's the debate about here? If we agree there is no criminal intent, and the recourse of institutions such as the RIAA are civil actions against individuals, then what more is there to debate?

Oh, wait..there are the cunts.

Oh, and society as a whole back in the middle ages was not capitalist. It was Feudal...which is definitely not capitalistic in that individuals could not do things individualistically without permission from their "lord". They were "property", being owned in a sense by their feudal lord. Kind of hard to be a capitalist in that environment, dontcha think.

That was a really nice diatribe of cut and paste on capitalism, in any case.

So, I'm going to veto the Middle ages = capitalist. Sorry.

"If we agree there is no criminal intent, and the recourse of institutions such as the RIAA are civil actions against individuals"

We don't agree. There is such a thing as criminal copyright infringement. The RIAA's only recourse is civil actions because they are not a governmental body, but the FBI does charge people with criminal infringement.

Btw, I am always amused by the software guys who justify music copyright infringement but when it comes to their hard work they get all ticked off. Funny stuff. : )

Since you seem to like this stuff, here you go:

From UNLV Western Civ., by G. Brown: http://www.unlv.edu/Faculty/gbrown/westernciv/wc201/wciv2c2/wciv2c2lsec2.html

How Did Capitalism Undermine Feudalism (and Why Is this Important)?

By the 16th century, in many areas of Europe, feudalism had withered before the rise of towns (since the organization of urban society was the antithesis of the organization of feudal, or agricultural society) and the establishment of specifically national states (i.e., the English, French, and Spanish state) among the majority of territorial states. The consolidation of territory under the national auspices of one ruler and the expansion of the urban economy thus gave rise to modern capitalism. Political entities called states replaced the lord-vassal relationship (in most places under the institution of a monarchy). But what happened to the economic system on which feudalism rested?With the rise of towns and a new merchant class, a system came into being which we know as capitalism and which remains the basis of today's global economy.

Crudely put, capitalism is the use of wealth to create more wealth. In other words, "capital" (wealth) is invested in order to create a profit. Capitalism is when "you have two cows and you sell one cow and buy a bull." The idea, of course, is that for the price of a bull to go with the cow, you can then breed more cattle, which can be raised to produce milk. The milk can then be sold to purchase more cattle, all of which creates more wealth. (Think of feudal economics as retaining the two cows.) Whereas the feudal economy produced little surplus value, surplus value is the very engine of the capitalist economy. A capitalist economy usually has the following characteristics:

A significant urban or manufacturing sector. Wealth and surplus (i.e., profits) are derived from manufacturing and commerce (and eventually industry), as well as from agriculture.

A free labor force, or one that is temporarily bound (such as apprentices or indentured servants). The laborers are paid a wage for their output, or by the unit of time they work (e.g., per hour, per day, per week, etc.).

Political authority is not formally connected to ownership or control of productive units, although suffrage (the right to vote) and the right to hold office may be restricted by wealth.

A prevailing ideology that sanctions the liberty of the producer and the right to freely enter into a contract. Furthermore, it places no restrictions on entry into a profession, or on the purchase of land.


Capitalism is the system of property relations characteristic of the modern world. While it existed in developmental form during earlier eras, it did not reach its mature stage until the 19th century. (Can you explain why a capitalist economy might require a whole new set of rules governing human behavior, as well as a completely different value system than that which prevailed under feudalism?)

mroop: Regarding software guys getting ticked but not about music "theft"

Yeah...that's what I'm thinking. I was wondering about "the cunts".

The software industry is not obsolete by the way, programmers just need to make more intelligent code.

You want more revenue no matter who copies it? make it shareware that phones home! dont go out raiding our houses!

It's always easy to count the money in the other guys pocket. "Bill Gates is rich! Doesn't that greedy pig have enough money already?" See, that's how you do it. : ) Or I can quote "Isabella" - "I am the one struggling to go to school," Isabella said. "Missy Eliott and OutKast are not."

well my point is that having a script on a remote server that detects phony serials and refuses software updates to those programs will be a harmless and noninvasive way to give customers a reason to buy a real serial.

Granted not all will do it, but it would minimize any potential "damages"

The entire problem is a moral dillema. There is no theft because nothing was actually taken. In the digital realm a copy can be made without depriving the origial owner of anything other than the 'possible' sale thereof. But if the person had not intended to buy in the first place then there is no loss other than that the other person got a copy without the original owners consent. You can understand why they might feel a bif miffed about that if their sole intention was to use their product to make money from.

This is where the problem lies. People who make these products with the sole intent of profiting from it.

They then use so called copyrights to chase people who made copies of their product and spout bullshit about those who copied being theives and pirates and use the laws of the land in order to do this. The laws themselves being outdated and entirely out of sync with society in the digital age.

It's a moral dillema as I said above because the person who made the copy feesl little remorse whilst the person who owns the original feels they've been cheated because their intention was to profit from their product.

If your intention was only to let as many people enjoy the fruits of your labour as possible then there is no problem.

Of course we all know theft is the deprivation of something from the original owner. The dillema comes in proving whether anyone was deprived of anything. In the digital age it was not property but potential income that they was possibly deprived of. But how the hell can you prove they would have profited from it in the first place? The industries such as the RIAA seem to believe their own lies in that we are all theives and we are 'stealing' potential sales and will even sue you for those so called lost sales.

"They then use so called copyrights to chase people"
copyrights were designed to allow them to tackle COMMERCIAL activities!
They were never intended to allow personal control of each and every american!

what about THAT moral dilemma.. that of depriving people of their property rights because youre not getting profits you were never "ENTITLED" to in the first place.

"This is where the problem lies. People who make these products with the sole intent of profiting from it."

I never heard of someone making a product with the intent to profit from it. The nerve!

"copyrights were designed to allow them to tackle COMMERCIAL activities!"

Can you direct me to a resource to support this statement?

"what about THAT moral dilemma.. that of depriving people of their property rights"

I find this statement interesting (and ludicrous). Do you believe that you can distributed copyrighted material without consent to whomever you choose in whatever volume you choose? For example, let's say you want to stand outside Comp USA and hand out free copies of Windows XP to whoever wants one, while inside they are trying to sell copies. Do you consider it an affront to your "property rights" that you are not permitted to do so?

Another example:

Let's say you make a good living and you have some bucks to spare for bandwidth. You love Microsoft products and you think everyone should have a copy of whatever they want for free. So you set up a web site called www.MicrosoftProductsForFree.com and offer free downloads to whoever wants them. Is it a denial of your "property rights" that you are not allowed to give away Microsoft products for free on your web site?

Good, question, I dont know hell, I paid for it, I should be able to do whatever I want with the product.

"let's say you want to stand outside Comp USA and hand out free copies of Windows XP to whoever wants one, while inside they are trying to sell copies. Do you consider it an affront to your "property rights" that you are not permitted to do so?"


If you origionally bought the copies you were giving away, wouldn't you be protected by the law? You aren't retaining any of the product after you give it away, and you would have legally bought them beforehand. anybody?

"By the 16th century, in many areas of Europe, feudalism had withered before the rise of towns (since the organization of urban society was the antithesis of the organization of feudal, or agricultural society) and the establishment of specifically national states (i.e., the English, French, and Spanish state) among the majority of territorial states. "

The 16th century began in 1501 Anno Domini. This would technically make it outside the Middle Ages, which is usually set at 500-1500 AD (or CE for common era). Some would even say (and this would support your position), that there was not a rise of a middle class until after the Middle Ages.

HOWEVER...there are some who seem to agree with me, that there was capitalism during the Middle Ages, though it was not "called" capitalism.

http://kuhttp.cc.ukans.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/capitalism.html
"The Rise of Capitalism


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dictionary and Thesaurus

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


THE GILD SYSTEM
The basic medieval manufacturing organization was the traditional shop -- a master and wife, a couple of employees, and a couple of children learning the trade. The master bought his raw materials, fabricated his product, and sold it retail. The shop was residence, dormitory, workshop, ware-house, and retail store. The masters of a given trade in a particular location united into a gild. The gild served many functions:

Economic
It set standards of quality for the goods or services that its members sold.
It the prices to be paid for materials and labor and to be asked for finished products - Usually the maximum price that members would offer from labor and materials, and the minimum price they would accept for their product.
It set production quotas for its members, both to insure that the gild's production would be sufficient to meet the needs of its market and to make sure that production would not be so great as to glut its market and drive down prices.
The gild stood surety for loans to members. This was something like co- signing a loan, but it was in the interest of all that members of the gild should not get a bad reputation because a few of their number had defaulted on loans.
Members of a gild were able to pool their capital and, perhaps even more important, share their risks. For example, if a member of a merchant gild sent out a shipload of goods, there was always the danger that a shipwreck could cost him the entire value of its cargo. If eight members sent out eight shiploads and divided their goods among those ships, however, the most a shipwreck could cost any member was one-eighth of his shipment. [Incidentally, modern companies evolved from this practice, which is why they sellshares of stock to the public],
Educational
The gild established and enforced minimum educational standards for apprentices. Masters were usually expected to teach their apprentices how to read and write, enough arithmetic to keep books, and to provide decent religious instruction in addition to teaching them the rudiments of their profession.
Representatives of the gild regularly inspected the conditions under which apprentices and journeymen worked. The usual arrangement for apprenticeships was that the parent of a young man, aged about seven, would take their son to a master of the gild in which they hoped that the boy could be trained. They paid the master a fee (sometimes quite large) and signed an agreement that the boy would work for the master for seven years as an apprentice. The master, in turn, promised to educate and train him and, at the end of the seven years, provide him with a new suit of clothes, a kit of whatever the tools of his trade were, and enough money to begin the period of traveling and gaining experience as a journeyman (coming from the French jour, or "day," and meaning a man paid each day for his labor. Incidentally, many gilds stipulated that it members were to provide their apprentices with new clothes once a year, usually at Easter. Note that clothing stores still hold major sales just before the Easter holidays.
Provided a board to examine candidates for journey-man and master. The candidate for the rank of master usually created as fine an example of the gilds product as his ability allowed. If it was considered good enough, the board would recommend that he be granted the title of "Master." The example that he created was known as his "master-piece." The examination system was an important means of ensuring the competence of all of the masters of a gild. If you will remember that the first universities were actually gilds and will note that universities are quite slow to change in any fundamental aspect, you will recognize that the presentation of a thesis by a candidate for a Master's degree and his examination on that piece of work is a continuation of medieval gild practice.
Fraternal
The members contributed annually to a burial fund and were expected to attend the funeral services. These services might include, among other things, a memorial banquet held after interment.
The gild members also contributed to funds for the upkeep of the widows and orphans of deceased members.
The members collectively honored the patron saint of their trade. This sometimes took the form of subsidizing carvings, paintings, stained-glass windows and the like in the local church, or the gild might even construct their own church, as did the stevedores of 13th-century Barcelona when they built the church of Santa María del Mar. Gilds also carried the statues of their patron saints in the religious processions that were once major events in urban life (and still are in cities such as Valencia and Sevilla in Spain).
provided representation on the town council. Townsmen often declared their independence of whatever secular or ecclesiastical lord had claimed ownership of the city, and they built walls to defend their rights against noble-led armies. Local government was taken over by town councils composed of representatives of the city's major gilds. Remnants of this state of affairs is continued in the City of London (its innermost central section), which is governed by a Lord Mayor and his council, who sit in Guildhall. One of these Lord mayors, Dick Whittington by name, has become a favorite figure in children's stories and pantomimes.
bailed fellow-gildsmen from jail. This was similar to the gild's attention to the competence of its members. In the middle ages more than today, mutual trust was essential in conducting business. Membership in a respected gild known to back its members in case of need secured such trust for gild members. If one person, however, gave the gild a bad name, all members suffered the loss.
Civic
served in town militia. The free cities needed to depend upon their own citizens to defend their liberties. Artisan militia could be very effective. In the battle of Legnano in 1177, the army of the German Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa was defeated when its flank was suddenly attacked by members of the butcher's gild of Milan, armed with the tools of their trade - pole-axes, cleavers, large cutting knives, and so forth. Over time however, urban gilds - particularly in Italy gave up fighting in the field in favor of hiring mercenary armies to do their fighting for them.
provided local fire defense. Since members of a given gild usually banded together in a specific neighborhood, it was only natural that they should defend their homes and wares from the ever-present danger of fire. So the gild itself bought and stored the fire-fighting equipment of the day - ladders, buckets, axes, hooks, chains - and even dug neighborhood cisterns to ensure that there would be water available with which to fight a sudden fire.
maintained a section of the town wall. Each gild was assigned a section of the city wall, which it was to keep in good repair, on which it was to place guards, and which it was to defend in case of attack.
took turns at guard duty
supported local magistrates
served in local courts
contributed to the town treasury
participated in local festivals. Often enough, a gild would sponsor an event, such as a play, and some gilds had the tradition of presenting their own plays to the public. The origin of modern Western drama is intimately connected with the medieval gilds.
maintained charitable institutions. Some of these charitable institutions have persisted to the present day. Merchant Taylors' is one of the elite "public schools" of England, and the Goldsmiths' Library is an outstanding repository of old and rare books.
hospitals. Medieval society was not cruel. Christians were expected to feed the hungry, provide drink for the thirsty, clothe the naked, comfort the ill and visit the imprisoned. Economic changes in the course of the 12th century led to severe social problems, including the increased growth of the pauper class, that was too great to be solved by the Church within the means available to it. Throughout the 12th and 13th centuries, gilds and individual gild members (and their sons and daughters) took responsibility for combatting these social evils. Gilds soon subsidized or even directly operated such charitable institutions as:
infirmaries
leper hospitals
charity cemeteries
poor relief
care for the aged
orphanages

THE CRISIS OF THE GILD SYSTEM, 1250-1350
The gild system non-competitive and adapted to an expanding economy. After 1250, economic expansion slowed and the gilds had to face new and competitive conditions. The reaction of the masters of many gilds were


to restrict admission to master's status
to reduce labor costs by cutting salaries of journeymen and extend the years of apprenticeship
to lower working conditions
to reduce civil contributions and charity
to lower purchase price for raw materials
to take over work of smaller gilds
to switch to lower quality, lower cost products
to establish monopoly areas.
These steps were insufficient in the long run. The gild system was designed to be cooperative rather than competitive. Any desire for efficiency and profit was balanced by the acceptance of the goal of a stable economy and concern for the common good. A significant portion of the profits of the gilds was diverted to providing social services, but the major limitation of the system was that it was based upon a number of small businesses and thus could not develop any efficiency of size. Although the gilds could pool capital, they could not permit a few individuals to accumulate enough capital to establish large and "rationally" organized enterprises.


THE COLLAPSE OF THE GILD SYSTEM, 1350 - 1500
After 1350, markets began to grow smaller, and the powerful long-distance merchants had to lower their costs in order to compete. They did so by producing their own goods, by-passing the gilds. There were two major systems of such "proto-capitalist" production.


The "putting-Out System
Merchants' agents would rent the necessary equipment to peasant families, sell them raw materials, and purchase the finished product. This process was particularly common in the production of candles, clocks, pewterware, stockings, hats, but most particularly in weaving. This system continued to be common until the end of the 19th century, and the early parts of George Eliot's (1819-1880) novel, Silas Marner, offer a good picture of its operation at its height.


The "Factory" System
The merchants would concentrate equipment in a warehouse ("factory"), acquire raw materials from their own farms or through agents, hire workers for wages only, ignore any production quotas, and compete rather than co-operate. This system was used primarily for manufacture consisting of several steps or dealing with heavy materials. It eventually developed into the factory system characteristic of the Industrial Era and which is still prevalent in the post-Industrial age.

The manufacturing gilds fought the development of these proto-capitalist systems, but were defeated by an alliance of the merchants' and the other "great" gilds (professional groups such as doctors, druggists, lawyers, gold- and silver-smiths). Although there were class wars in many towns, the artisan gilds were unable to compete economically, and so eventually disappeared. Many gilds persisted for a long time, however, especially those in retail and small-scale service and repair. It was only with the appearance of shopping centers and "supermarkets" after World War II that butchers and bakers lost their professional status, while such groups as plumbers have managed to keep that status. The professional gilds developed into the American Medical Association, the American Bar Association, and the silver- smiths and gold-smiths became the economy's bankers.


THE RESULTS OF THE RISE OF PROTO-CAPITALISM
The proto-capitalists of the later middle ages did not support civic services, so urban life deteriorated. The workers' standard of living dropped, and this reduced their ability to buy the goods they produced. The European consumer markets grew quite restricted, and this contributed to a general recession in the fifteenth century. Production was now uncontrolled, and cycles of inflation and depression became common. More production was moved to the countryside, and wealth concentrated more rapidly in ever-fewer hands.

Together with the disappearance of the manorial system in the countryside, the emergence of capitalism altered the structure of society. Peasants and middle class split into two classes, the proprietors and a proletariat, the lower levels of which merged with the pauper class. Something of the same thing was happening among the nobility, where there was an increasing gap between the squires and the magnates. The medieval structure of social classes was being replaced by the modern structure based upon economic classes."

Uh, MP3user, I believe mroop was suggesting the copies the person is "giving away" in front of the CompUSA are burned copies, not "purchased" copies....

Otherwise, if you did buy the product and choose to give it away, yes you can do whatever you want.

mroop : "I never heard of someone making a product with the intent to profit from it. The nerve!"

Well yes, Tom Jefferson would think it was nerve. He invented quite a few things, and gave them away as gifts to the world. He said an idea could not be owned.

Of course, they did not have the kind of law enforcement capabilities in those days that we have today -- the snoop and peek capabilities, the ability to put you in prison for months without charges, the ability to harass, and take away your property before guilt is proven. If Jefferson had had these federal powers on his side, maybe he'd have tried to capitalize on some "intellectual property" rights? Hahaha.

I sympathize with software designers having their work copied, because it probably does reduce sales. But if they don't like the remuneration, they should really go sell shoes or something that can't be copied. You know, the artist or software designer does not have a RIGHT to create and be paid. He has the freedom to operate in the marketplace, and if he can make money in it, fine. If not, perhaps another line of work would be in order.

Excessive copyright legislation is sort of like protectionism for the steel industry or artificial government price supports for domestic sugar. It is trying to guarantee people jobs who cannot compete in the world economy. Copying is a fact of life, and far more so in the rest of the world. It is like the sun and the rain (or lack of it) for a farmer -- a force of nature you cannot control. If you don't like that it is like the king shaking his fist at the tides and commanding them not to come in. This is how it is, if you don't like it, Mr. Programmer, get another job, or stop whining.

Hmm,
Isn't that what Microsoft did with IE in
order to destroy Netscape ??
Why pay 50 for netscape if IE is free ?
How could Microsoft give away IE ???
They were wealthy enough to take the
loss.
Microsoft got away with it by making IE
an "essential" part of the OS instead of
a separate entity. Nice little loophole that
Lawyers like Mroop came up with.
The ability to make anything ok by
using the right language is truly a
lawyers greatest gift.
The sharks will use that gift to the
benefit of the side that has the most
cash at their disposal.

I am a registered copyright owner , but, under the point of creation standard established by the US Copyright, upon creation of a unique body of work, at the point of fixation (as opposed to it just rolling around in the brain), a copyright is created, along with the tradition rights of a copyright holder to control his work. Fair use, as a concept exists, but major media are trying to eradicate it...Reuters is talking about using FAST Search to hunt down sites using it's news without its prior authorization for example.

If a uniform and rigid application of copyright protection was truly in place, every time a webpage was loaded a copyright violation would be generated by the visitor...because there is no such thing as an implied right to copy. Libraries would have someone by the copier demanding your written authorization from the copyright holder to copy the material...and in fact, every copier, scanner, or other device capable of making a facsimile of copyrighted material would need a monitor to demand your proof of authorization from the copyright holder...imagine this at every law office, courthouse, Kinkos,...and of course, homes across this country with fax machines , scanners, copiers, digital cameras...all at the ready to infringe copyrights.

The foregoing is © 2004 by CodeWarrior. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is a violation of applicable Copyright Laws of the United States of 1976, and of the Chapter 17 provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

you can say what you want mroop, but the furvor with which you combatted my last two posts shows you find them not only credible, but correct.

The constitution protects people's property rights over copyright, if not directly, than indirectly.

A number of provisions, when tied together, do this, and you yourself know this.

"your honor i rest my case"

You are right, people's rights are above property, ie life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (property), but when people dont care much about an issue and dont voice their dissents, your politicians wont care much to enforce those rights either. Still early in the game though, the fact that they only filed 477 as oppossed to the usual 532 does somewhat say they fear bad publicity on account of this.

Sorry, but all this discussion has bothered me to making a post on it elsewhere. I'm outta this thread.

"you can say what you want mroop, but the furvor with which you combatted my last two posts shows you find them not only credible, but correct."

That's very funny. But you didn't answer my question. So I'll ask it again:

Let's say you make a good living and you have some bucks to spare for bandwidth. You love Microsoft products and you think everyone should have a copy of whatever they want for free. So you set up a web site called www.MicrosoftProductsForFree.com and offer free downloads to whoever wants them. Is it a denial of your "property rights" that you are not allowed to give away Microsoft products for free on your web site?

Are you afraid to answer the question?

"Hmm, Isn't that what Microsoft did with IE in order to destroy Netscape ??"

But Microsoft owned the rights to IE, so this response doesn't answer the question.

"The constitution protects people's property rights over copyright, if not directly, than indirectly.

A number of provisions, when tied together, do this, and you yourself know this.

"your honor i rest my case""

If you tried this in a real court, first the judge would laugh in your face. Then you would be disbarred for gross incompetence. : )

Bill Gates started his little company selling the idea to Intel he had an operating system which he didn't.

I thought gross incompetence was the standard of care for a lot of attorneys that I have seen. And, they are enabled to continue at that level by state Bars that look the other way when they commit wrongdoings and breaches of their Codes of Professional Conduct.

http://www.retroarchive.org/cpm/cdrom/KILDALL/GARYMEM1
"Negotiated with IBM

However, Kildall is probably best remembered for being on the
losing end of one of the biggest deals in computer history.

In 1980, IBM contacted Digital Research, hoping to persuatde it
to produce a new version of CP/M for the personal computer IBM
was secretly developing. Kildall didn't think much of IBM"s
chances but met with the company anyway.

"IBM wanted to take the market away from Apple, and they looked
at them and saw that the SoftCard (a CP/M add-in card for the
Apple II) was an important part of it," Kildall said in a 1991
interview.

Negotiations went badly, Rolander said. IBM wanted Digital
Research to sign a non-disclosure agreement but refused to sign
one in return. IBM wanted to pay a flat fee for CP/M, with no
royalties, and change the software's name.

Silicon Valley legend has it that Kildall, a passionate private
pilot, missed a crucial meeting because he decided to go flying
instead. While Kildall did fly that morning, Rolander said, he
attended the afternoon meeting.

IBM decided to hedge its bets. During a visit to tiny
Microsoft Corp., to obtain a version of its BASIC programming
language, IBM inquired if the company also could provide an
operating system.

Microsoft moves in

Even though he didn't have one, Microsoft founder Bill Gates
readily agreed to IBM's request. He bought a CP/M clone called
DOS from Seattle Computer Products, a company run by a friend
of Gates, for $250,000. That program became MS-DOS, proably
the most widely used software in the world, and helped turn
Gates into a billionaire."

Hmmmm, back to the oranges. My analogy. What if the orange grove owner also had apples, grapes, and peaches growing in his orchard? The fruitstand owner, however, only wanted people to buy oranges. Because he was the only fruitstand, only oranges were promoted for sale. Attempts were made to make it difficult for people to promote these other fruits. The person who came to the orange grove at night copied not only the oranges but the other fruits as well. The copies were not as pretty nor as sweet but they weren't bad. Then, the copier gave all the fruit away. Some people took the copies instead because they were sick of oranges, could not afford to buy oranges, or hated the fixed prices of the oranges. Other people still bought the oranges or bought the originals of the new fruit they discovered from fruitstands in other parts of the world.

"what about THAT moral dilemma.. that of depriving people of their property rights because youre not getting profits you were never "ENTITLED" to in the first place."

That is my argument too. The RIAA has a false sense of entitlement. They think they're 'entitled' to our dollars. RIAA: the public's money IS NOT YOUR BIRTHRIGHT. You must do what every other person from every other walk of life does - EARN IT. This is not a new concept. You've done it in the past - manufactured lots of music worth spending money on, even though it could be heard on the radio (and taped) for free. Now you want to blame the file-sharing public for so-called 'lost sales' - though the majority of the music you manufacture and promote the hell out of these days is the vocal equilvalent of junk food?

The RIAA doesn't have the right to tell the public what to do with the CDs we buy from them. Just like the public doesn't have the right to tell the RIAA what to do with the money they get in exchange for the CDs. How would we (the public) look telling the RIAA how to spend the money we give them in exchange for their CDs?

The orange example is interesting, I ll give you that, however I think its more like you have 5 orange farmers who account for about 90% of the total orange distribution in the world, and have decided to fix the price of oranges at a given denomination per orange and have decided to form "collective groups" such as the Orange Industry Association of America (OIAA), in order to further their monopoly in the orange market. Then 60 million people, not one or two, do something in one region that goes against their collective interest, which is to fix prices, so they can charge whatever they want, and they (OIAA-fictitous) attempt to sway the 60 million from engaging in a certain conduct by making examples out of a few obvious souls. (whew, end of my run on sentence).

"How would we (the public) look telling the RIAA how to spend the money we give them in exchange for their CDs?"

If they RIAA took your money and copied it and gave away copies then they would be guilty of counterfeiting.

Yes, Microsoft had rights to IE.
They used their cash base, and near
monopoly power to eliminate a competitor, by giving their version away free.

Sharks that made cash from this deal thought it was good, very good.

RIAA uses it's cash base and near monopoly power to bring civil suit against
people who can't fight back ( up until this
point, hand picking the low and middle incomes ),
to force the market in a direction that favors
their monopoly.

The sharks that get wealthy off of this also think it is good,
very good.

Sharks = common vernacular for attorney.

Wrong is ok as long as there is money to be made. Eh Mroop ?

Notice I did NOT say legal or illegal.
Many wrongs are being made, and have
been made "legal"

It's the job of the shark to make certain that this continues.

"If they RIAA took your money and copied it and gave away copies then they would be guilty of counterfeiting."

HA! Yeah - If I were trying to use counterfeit money for commercial gain - INSTEAD OF PERSONAL USE.

"HA! Yeah - If I were trying to use counterfeit money for commercial gain - INSTEAD OF PERSONAL USE."

Please tell me you are not this ignorant. If you counterfeit money and give it away you are still guilty. Commercial gain has nothing to do with it.

Dreddsnik - I'm not sure what your rant has to do with my original post. Here it is again. I see no one is willing to answer the question. : )

"Let's say you make a good living and you have some bucks to spare for bandwidth. You love Microsoft products and you think everyone should have a copy of whatever they want for free. So you set up a web site called www.MicrosoftProductsForFree.com and offer free downloads to whoever wants them. Is it a denial of your "property rights" that you are not allowed to give away Microsoft products for free on your web site?"

And another question for the "property rights" advocates. Should you be allowed to make copies of money and give them away? After all, it is your "property". Is it not a restriction of your "property rights" that you can't do what you want with YOUR MONEY! (snicker)

BTW...although I often disagree with mroop...but I think mroop was/is probably a great attorney, and I am being serious. And, I respect mroop's ability as a legal mind...

and I did appreciate the counter-arguements of DevonPowell..

You "almost" beat me on that argument

Best wishes ....but, I still hold my ground

official currency is not the property of citizens...it is government property...made by government presses, designed by government paid designers...etc.

but, also, if you have "real property"/land..it is not really yours if the gov can take it from you if you don't continually pay them tribute in the form of property taxes....

so...the idea of land ownership is screwed up as well..

"render unto caesar what is caesars"....but caesar wants to own it all...even us!

Right back atcha! Smooches! : )

"official currency is not the property of citizens...it is government property...made by government presses, designed by government paid designers...etc."

Screw that man! It's MY MONEY! I EARNED IT! PROPERTY RIGHTS! Hee hee!

it is also fiat currency,...i.e. not really backed dollar for dollar with gold or silver...just paper that we AGREE upon giving it value.

Oh yeah. I REST MY CASE!

i think real property rights for american citizens died in the 1930s, or maybe 1917 here in the USA...they were gone before I was born, that's all I know about it../.

From one of many sites holding this bizarre notion of mine
http://www.barefootsworld.net/usfraud.html

Who is running America? Have you ever asked that question?
Under the doctrine of Parens Patriae, "Government As Parent", as a result of the manipulated bankruptcy of the United States of America in 1930, ALL the assets of the American people, their person, and of our country itself are held by the Depository Trust Corporation at 55 Water Street, NY, NY, secured by UCC Commercial Liens, which are then monetized as "debt money" by the Federal Reserve. It may interest you to know that under the umbrella of the Depository Trust Corporation lies the CEDE Corporation, the Federal Reserve Corporation and the American Bar Association, the legal arm of the banking interests.

I REST MY CASE>..lol


"you're out of order, " Al Pacino...And Justice for All (movie)

I'm out of order?! You're out of order! This whole court's out of order!!

"Please tell me you are not this ignorant. If you counterfeit money and give it away you are still guilty. Commercial gain has nothing to do with it."

Actually, you're displaying your vivid stupidity. What in hell does counterfeiting money have to do with sharing files?

Since you were dumb enough to use that analogy, I played along with you.

Since I must spell it out for you mroop:

Counterfeiting money is a moral and legal crime.

File sharing ISN'T.

Got it?

Good grief, why all the anologies? Counterfeiting money? is to use for more personal gain, whereas filesharing for most of the population is for personal, just want to listen to a favorite song.... I'm now pulling what's left of my hair out!!!

Mroop:
I understand that you intentions of conversation are to show legal views on why the other's ideas will fail, but I do not see why, as far as I can see, you are trying to aggravate some of the more easily annoyed members of this community.

I understand your frustration at them, but you must understand, these people are only trying to do what's right, what's just.

Instead of these continual arguements with the others, why not say some thing like "(Poster name), you are incorrect because (explanation), but (law, theory or whatever you're suggesting) may work, because (explanation)."

I'm not asking for you to accept the comments, I know they do seem insulting. All I'm asking is that you join us in doing what's good and right, rather than continue this endless tirade of arguements and insult-slinging. After all, the site was created, and the discussions started, over a righteous cause.

And the rest of you guys, I respect you all too, but if Mroop decides to help, give him a break, ne?

and I did appreciate the counter-arguements of DevonPowell..

You "almost" beat me on that argument


ALMOST?!?!? HA!

Even in the paper YOU cited it's clear that capitalism wasn't prominent until the END of the middle ages (19th century or thereabout) with the rise of the industrial revolution.

So, unless you are going to recind your earlier 'blanket' statement about the Middle ages being capitalistic and change it to the 'end of the middle ages', I'd say the arguement is MINE!!!!

Thanks for the stimulating conversation in any case, I enjoyed it as well.

I would appreciate the help of an attorney with the obvious talents of
Mroop, if I felt that his intent is
to provide anything other than
just the endless barrage of legalese,
nonsensical anologies, and other outright
rhetorical, nitpicking, pinpricking blather.

We all are well aware that a skillfully
verbose attorney can make the Pope
appear guilty of a crime.

Regardless off all that is wonderfully and
verbally "legal", this currently jive with
what is "right". That is ....
Consumer Rights,
Right to privacy,
Right to OWNERSHIP as opposed to "Licensing ( leasing ),
most of all ....
Fair .. Fucking .. Use.

The RIGHT to have a copy of anything I BOUGHT AND PAID FOR, in ANY format
I want it, Whatever I have to do to get it that way.

To own an 8-track and be able to DL an
MP3 of a song on it to my PC. I bought it.
it's mine. Use whatever legal twisting and verbal prestidigitation you like.
It's still mine and MY RIGHT to have as
many copies as I want on whatever media I want, even if is only song lyrics
on toilet paper to wipe my ass with,
which , just by coincidence is about what
the current monopoly has turned "music"
into.
THAT's why Mroop pisses me off.
Grey is gone, Black and white the only
right.
Unfortunately, true right and wrong are
a bit more hazy than that, and only
human compassion and understanding
will ever sort it out. Not cold, rigid print.

Wanna help, Mroop ???
Open some of that mind of yours up and
start figuring out something reasonable
that might work, and try to fine tune it,
WITH US. Act like nails on a blackboard,
screecjing over the flaws of the ideas,
helping to eliminate the flaws, instead of
slinging nukes, trying to marginalize,
classify, stereotype us as a bunch of
"kids who want shit for free".
The truth is, that very few of us fit in
that category.

Most Ironic of all,
you already know it.

at the end of the middle ages....
truce

The problem isnt whether you can have a copy of whatever you legally own in any format, the problem is distribution. You can go on Kazaa right now and download whatever song you want, and no one is going to bother you, why, simple, who the hell is going to prove you dont own the song on CD or whatever. Its when you share the music that they come after you. Just turn your sharing off, it doesnt matter, Canadians can provide the music for you, file sharing is legal there.

There are a few points to this thread that I and intrigued with. First is the Counterfeiting and the land issue. I know it has been said but I will say it again, We dont own our land we rent it from uncle sam, it sucks but its true. Second the currency that we use is a promissary note designed distributed and printed by sub contractors of the government. The U.S. Tresuray is not owned by the government they have a contract with the government and the government buys the money from them and that is ONE of the contributing factors to infation. Now that I am almost all the way off topic for this thread I will redirect. I was not clear to me an answer about what is the difference between copying and Stealing(Theft). Copying is obviously not always theft i.e. kinko's people obtain valid permission everyday for copying copyrighted material and no theft with non copyrighted material. So it comes down to the meat of the issue. RIAA vs. Kazaa, programer vs. pirate, corp. vs. consumer. So which side is "Right"? A moral term. Which one is "Legal"? A term of the Law. Is all "legal"="Right"? The answer is no. Does everyone believe the same way on the issue? No. So the fact of the matter legal does not matter, it is not set in stone. So what is right. That will be determined not in court but in the confilict of groups on both main sides of the struggle. Who ever has the biggest voice will win. I believe for our society to move on past its current short comings people will have to let information, data and ideas flow freely to whom ever. But I also think we are not ready to take such a large step at this time. When it comes down to it. I don't think its a debate of legality or straight morality at this point its a argument of greed. People are just using both legal and moral terms to justify their postions. Both sides(Riaa & the consumer) want to rip the other off. But the fact of the matter in our social and thought structure sharing is not stealing. A legal it does not matter what is said people dont want to pay for what they can get for free and they will keep "aquiring it" until they are put in a position where they can't a.k.a. dead, imprisoned, have more to lose by continuing or are affected by the act of information being shared. I'm sorry, I can admitt I'm not ready to move on socially and I'm a consumer. I want stuff for free. But at least I one of the minority that knows where I stand and dont hide soley behind a totally "legal " position....thats my 2 cents....and I acept the beating I will get in lew of this post.......(this is me bending over and cringing as I say "Please be gental and use the lube") >:0

I think the orange grove analogy is good, just with a couple mods. You buy the oranges from the evil monopolistic vendors and, um Ah! - "seed" the earth (public prop.) and voila. no need to buy oranges, no need for monopoly orange vendors.

The real problem with globalism is that human culture can't compete with human greed. Damn humans

...I think humans were just evolved on earth to destroy themselves...just to be ironic.

anyone actually get this far in reading the posts?

You bettcha eflatguitar (does 'eflat' refer to pedal steel?)

Thanks Delta.
Thats my big irritant.
Hiding behind legalities.

Just to reiterate ...
Not all sharers are simply after stuff for free.
Truth, some are.
We won't dispute this, or try to hide that.
We don't believe that it hurts the "industry" the way it claims,
regardless of the bought and paid for statistics they produce.
Thus, total invasion of our privacy, and
the utter removal of our rights is overkill.
Punishments NOT befitting the "crime".
Thats a VERY capsulized summary of
"our side".

How we view them ...
They attack us because they DO in fact
fear us. Not for the reasons they claim,
however.
They are desperate to close the doors of opportunity.
Opportunity for those musicians that eschew them.
The ones that don't wish to be controlled by them.
The ones that write their own, play their own, record their own.
The industry hides behind law to prevent this,
even to the point of buying new "law" when the
existing ones fail to serve.

The "other" other side ...
The Parasites.

The more "unscrupulous" of the legal profession are very
aware of where the cash is. They are very good
at what they do, and are happy to receive the "pat on the head" and their
"bone" from Master Greenback, regardless of
who is REALLY right.
Programmers who know a good thing when they see it.
That is, a bunch of stupid suits with a huge
bank account, eager to shell it out to anyone who says
they have a solution via software to remove our rights, or invade our privacy.

This could go on forever but ...

My point ....

There are not two sides in this.
There are three.
Two of those sides want an end, for different reasons.
One of those sides benefits greatly, as long as the
fight continues.

It's really not all that hard to identify those that want the fight to go on.

Truce

"Then imagine that, just as the cute little pink tongue emerges to begin lapping at the gore, the rat is cruelly thrown behind the television, and the bearer bends down, rips off the kitten's fluffy tail, minces it up in the blender and then drinks the puree of fur and flesh, shouting "Take that, you furry little bastard!"


AHHHAHAHHAHA!
...HAHAHHAHAA!
*gets sick from laughing so hard*
*calms down, has hiccupps now*

i know, i am a sick freak, but a) i found the analogy itself amusing and b)makes you wonder about the mindset of the author.`

*sigh*

takes chill pill

Good points TK. That is why I asked the question:

"Let's say you make a good living and you have some bucks to spare for bandwidth. You love Microsoft products and you think everyone should have a copy of whatever they want for free. So you set up a web site called www.MicrosoftProductsForFree.com and offer free downloads to whoever wants them. Is it a denial of your "property rights" that you are not allowed to give away Microsoft products for free on your web site?"

My point in asking this question was for those who believe in free file sharing to consider the ultimate ramifications of their position and to determine if they really believe in free file sharing or not. It seems that no one has been willing to step up to the plate and take a shot at my question though.

"if I felt that his intent is to provide anything other than just the endless barrage of legalese, nonsensical anologies, blah blah blah ..."

I find it strange that you accuse me of a barrage of legalese when the question I have asked repeatedly in this thread has been a moral question, not a legal question.

"The more "unscrupulous" of the legal profession are very aware of where the cash is. They are very good at what they do, and are happy to receive the "pat on the head" and their "bone" from Master Greenback, regardless of who is REALLY right."

This statement belies your basic misunderstanding of the legal profession. It is not the lawyer's job to determine who is "REALLY right". That is the job of the judge. The lawyer's job is to represent his client to the best of his ability. It is not to wag his finger judgmentally at the client and tell him that he is not "REALLY right". In addition, who is "REALLY right" is not carved in stone as you seem to think. There's an old saying that you may have heard - there are two sides to every story.

I put my sword down, I am not picking it back up.
I won't be baited into doing so.

"I won't be baited into doing so."

This is a classic example of passive agressive behavior. You claim you put your sword down but at the same time you accuse me of baiting you. Too funny!! : )

???????????

"My point in asking this question was for those who believe in free file sharing to consider the ultimate ramifications of their position and to determine if they really believe in free file sharing or not. It seems that no one has been willing to step up to the plate and take a shot at my question though."

First of all I want to say that I'm not here to step on anyone's toes. Second for a refrence to how I believe about civil rights; I am an avid shooter (target not hunting) and I believe it is the root to protection every right we have. Yes even to the extent to kill a person( forgien or demostic) that would threaten those rights; heaven forbid it would ever come down to that extream. With that said I will say when it comes down to it I believe yes its a denial of my personal property rights. I bought those one's and zero's and if I want to disribute it and the product key then so be it. On the other hand I can't bitch about and action, code, passwords or adware that will make it hard or impossible for only one copy to run at a time. But as long as I can distribute and make work maky copies of that code with out damaging or altering other copies peoples including microsofts master copies; Then I think I is your property. And again this is my opinion not law and I'm not saying this to hurt anyone. Just excersing my first amendment right.

Thanks for the response. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. The reason we have copyright law in the first place is to encourage the development of intellectual property.

Try to imagine a world where the moment Microsoft or any other company invents a program or game, that program or game is available immediately on thousands of web sites for free and it is perfectly legal to get these games and programs for free. There would be no way for the company to recoup their costs or make a profit and this would kill the entire game and program industry. That is why we have copyright law - to protect those who use their time and money to create things that benefit society.

I wonder how you earn your paycheck? What if I could somehow render your days work valueless and therefore your boss would not pay you at the end of the week? You probably would not like that too much.

First of all I am not of the norm, I am a male 24 year old homemaker. I raise my 18 month old daqughter. But I do see your point and I do understand why copy right laws exsist. But...there is always a but...1st if this is a capitalistic sociaty (which is and economic sructure not a political governing system) then those dangers of people are a given and just fall into the equation even if events(say piracy) wipes out and entire industry. Infact this is the tao of life itself. I have been talking on another forum(a pro gun dealing with the 94 ban sunset this year) we have been talking about our rights. The government is not here to make sure we have jobs or income and that also applies to the laws they make. Infact in all reality I believe like many soon many of our laws and governing structure needs to change and if it doesnt on its own, We the people will restructure it ourselves with our second amendment rights. Back to the industies dealing with intellectual property look at the renessance period. The time that is attributed to giving us some of our biggest conceptual improvemnets(flight, space travel, modern computers, mathamatics, science, music, art) and I'm not saying they were relized ideas but they were shared freely and our planet grew from that experiance. Then you have the dark ages, a time of oppresion, heritics and magic. You were killed if you shared something that was not main stream. And we got nothing but dead and some really kick ass rpg game out of that period. And this is were my opinion steams from. Again I do understand your points, and I am not discounting them. I'm just weighing the pros and cons of the issue and then taking a stance on my outcome of that equation.

"Thanks for the response. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. The reason we have copyright law in the first place is to encourage the development of intellectual property."

Maybe the STATED purpose, the high and mighty MISSION STATEMENT, but you know as well as I that it grew out of the English Copyright System and that was a concerted effort by the Stationers Guild that were money hungry bastards, and the Crown, who wanted to be able to control free speech!