Governement and Megaupload
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Irish Houstonian
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Except YouTube takes down copyright violating material, after receiving proper notice. MegaUpload doesn't (or didn't). It may be "just like" YouTube in a thousand ways but it wasn't in the one way that legally counts.
We can always ask Congress to change the copyright laws, but they are what they are, and you can't really blame the DOJ for literally doing its job.
We can always ask Congress to change the copyright laws, but they are what they are, and you can't really blame the DOJ for literally doing its job.
Well didn't megaupload have some type of program that deleted unpopular files but kept the really popular ones? if that's the case I think it was justified in taking down that site. Other than that though, I don't support taking down these types of sites.
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irishpat183
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Cause the hollywood elite are hurting for money....
Christ. What a joke.
I wish someone would shut down our damn government for their wastefulness.
Christ. What a joke.
I wish someone would shut down our damn government for their wastefulness.
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Buster Bluth
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Intellectual Property Rights are a joke. More power to any downloading sites.
I'm a utorrent guy myself, I had never heard of megaupload prior to this.
I'm a utorrent guy myself, I had never heard of megaupload prior to this.
Intellectual Property Rights are a joke to those who have no intellectual property.
The law is the law. People who get pissed when the DoJ does their job make me laugh.
Zwidmanio
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I have to respectfully disagree with this. I don't agree with what was done to megaupload and a number of other "infringing" sites recently and throughout the years, but intellectual property rights are, to a certain extent, what allows musicians and other artists to make an honest living. They do have other avenues to generate income through their craft, but intellectual property rights make up the bulk of what most of the artists you're aware of earn.
That being said, I think that the uproar from large media conglomerates claiming that they are protecting their artists is a joke. Their lobbying and overreaching through the SOPA and PIPA efforts are also cringeworthy. It's a wonder, after nearly a century of chewing up and spitting out artists after they've milked them for what they're worth they're all of a sudden worried about the artists getting their fair share.
This is why I'm somewhat torn on the issue. I fully support the artists and want them to have the ability to support themselves by disseminating their work, but I feel they're getting ripped off by the large companies that control most of the dissemination anyhow.
Either way, megaupload and a number of other sites have plenty of legitimate uses and I have absolutely no problem with their existence. I see them as little different than blank cassette tapes and vhs, which also came under fire when they were introduced. Different day, same story.
phgreek
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man in some ways I agree...I can't figure out how we have grown government again...
I look at our population growth, and consider automation/inovation as relates to administrative functions since 1980...WTF!?! how can this be?
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Buster Bluth
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"An unjust law is no law at all." - St. Augustine.
Don't kid yourself, the laws were put in place by Hollywood's lawyers and stand in direct defiance of true capitalism and I adamantly oppose them.
Years ago, nobody argued that IP (intellectual property) was truly property. It was a short-term restriction by others to sell your idea for their own profit for you to have a decent chance to make back your initial investment. It wasn't carte blanche to restrict anybody for the rest of eternity from making it and you could live high on the hog for the rest of your life in the bahamas drinking fruit-flavored beverages with little umbrellas in them.
That's the part of the problem with becoming an ownership society. We see IP as a modern sweepstakes. if you're the first of 300 million to come up with an idea you get to sell it nationwide (even an average of $1 per person profit is more than you will ever need to retire on). It's the get-out-of-the-rat-race-free card. No work needed. You don't even have to produce your product at all. You can create it in your head, patent it/copyright it, and then sue the living **** out of anybody else who had the unfortunate circumstance of thinking up the same idea just a few days after you.
That's not what patents and copyrights were designed for. That's not why the American people agreed to let this artificial creation exist. There were very set rules for it. Simple and meager to let creators create and have the government agree to hold off the rabble at the gate while the creator has a chance to make back their initial investment. It wasn't a guarantee. It was a chance. You have the CHANCE to make back your money. Some inventors/creators might spend thousands to produce something and realize that their idea doesn't sell well. Sometimes it becomes huge AFTER it became the public domain. It was a chance.
But in the end, the sum of human knowledge was intended to become free in the public domain for any and all to participate in building upon those ideas. Instead, the government has become a bought and paid for enforcer, a mafia henchman out to break the legs of anyone who gets in the way of those doing the creating because the right of the 'creator' trumps everyone else.
My biggest problem with the laws is that corporations are treated as people but they do not die. So when an artist makes a song for the record company, they own it and are owned in turn my some mega-corporation like Time Warner and it never dies. It owns it for eternity. Take any simple song, it cannot be played or used by anyone for the rest of time. That is absolutely asinine. Under the Disney world, copyright law will keep getting pushed further and further back to make sure that Mickey Mouse never becomes public domain. Copyright was intended to be temporary to cover the short term cost of producing the work to make back the money in a reasonable amount of time of the life of the creator of the work. That doesn't hold true anymore. Especially with corporations owning things when they can't 'die' and can keep reselling it to other entities.
Eliminate modern copyright and go back to the rules when copyright was first created. Give artists and corporations X years (I'm in favor of ten or fifteen, maybe twenty) to recoup their investment and then open it up to anyone. That way we don't have ****ed up situations like kids on Michael Jackson owning the publishing rights to Beatles songs..and not the actually f*cking members of the Beatles.
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Buster Bluth
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That's the thing, artists do not own their songs. Katy Perry does not own her songs. It doesn't say "property of Katy Perry on it." It is the property of the corporation and it never dies and the rights to that melody are its forever. You think that's okay?
I was talking about this subject in class yesterday, and the guy to my left said "I support SOPA because you shouldn't download anything for free! the artists and companies are entitled to their profits." And the guy to the right of me said "well I only ever downloaded Adobe software because well, I'm a poor college kid and can't really afford it."
And I said "WAIT A MINUTE. Here's the issue I have. You (guy to the left) don't want people to download music and such because the money deserves to go to the artists. That is a fair point and I cannot argue with it. But the HUGE amount of irony is that after X number of years, anyone can use that Adobe software however they want. the patent will expire and it's free for everyone. BUT THE SIMPLE SONGS....noooooo, they're owned by the corporation forever because they're are intellectual property."
It's a f*cking joke. Treat art like you would any patent and stop letting Hollywood rake in the dough for doing nothing. Make artists go and preform to make their living, stop letting them play it on the radio for the rest of time while they produce nothing.
Zwidmanio
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I think we're in complete agreement as far as corporate exploitation of artists and their work.
I do think that some of your beliefs in regards to intellectual property law are incorrect though. Patents and copyrights are finite in nature. It might seem as if they're infinite, since copyrights are currently valid for the life of the author plus 70 years or so or if they're if created by a corporation 120 years or so (forgive the details), but they do last for a finite period. Whether or not that is too long is debatable. I don't have a problem with the artist and/or their family benefiting from the work, corporations are a different matter.
Your Mickey Mouse example above is a slightly different matter. If I recall correctly, Mickey Mouse began as a copyright but was converted into a trademark when the copyright expired. Trademark is a different story, they can hold onto that forever. How valid this is/should be is also debatable.
Please don't construe this as me trying to be argumentative. I actually agree with a lot of what you say. I strongly believe in the public domain and believe that more ideas should be available for dissemination and use by the public at large, particularly patents. We would all be a lot better off if this were the case. However, I also strongly support the idea that an artist should have the right to control their work. Corporations, not so much, but I see this as being an issue with business and current intellectual property law (influenced largely by corporations), not the principles of intellectual property law.
Veer option
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I have no problem with the government hammering down on those sites. Very few things I despise worse in this world than thieves. If you want to steal music/movies walk into your nearest store and steal it from them don't be a pussy behind a computer and claim that you are fighting the man. That is a damn cop out.
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Buster Bluth
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Design patents last 14 years. Intellectual Property rights, and all copyrights, should last no longer than 20 years.
I am cool with trademark law being permanent. But, Mickey Mouse is much more than a trademark.
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IrishinSyria
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Ok, I definitely used Megaupload (megavideo) to watch illegally uploaded tvshows for free. It was definitely breaking the law, it was definitely literally stealing from the owners of the content, and it definitely deserved to be shut down.
Not that I'm happy about it, how am I supposed to watch new episodes of Archer for free now?
Not that I'm happy about it, how am I supposed to watch new episodes of Archer for free now?
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I don't think people download music illegally because they think they're fighting the man...I think they do it because it is low-risk and free.
irishfanjho15
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NO wonder my f*cking cable bill is out-f*cking-rageous!!!!
Walter White
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Don't have too much of a problem with the Fed enforcing the law, but I have a hard time understanding how they can enforce U.S. law internationally.
The arrests were made in New Zealand, and they were extradited to the U.S. That's where I think this whole thing gets very interesting.
The arrests were made in New Zealand, and they were extradited to the U.S. That's where I think this whole thing gets very interesting.
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Buster Bluth
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Never in my life have I stolen something where the 'victim' was never deprived of what was 'stolen'.
If I steal your car, you no longer have it. If I make an exact duplicate of it, I didn't 'steal' it. How could you? You still have your car. I now have a duplicate.
Zwidmanio
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New Zealand could be a signatory of the TRIPPS or Berne Convention (note: it's been a while since I've studied this so if the details are off forgive me). Essentially they're international treaties with the signatories agreeing that they will assist in protection of the other signatory country's intellectual property rights/laws.
Zwidmanio
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The problem is you're trying to compare tangible goods to intangible goods. They are obviously different in their nature, but I think we could all agree that there are goods of each nature and that these goods have some value.
Just because you're not entirely depriving the owner of all possible use of the good does not mean that you're not stealing. You are depriving the owner of that intellectual property of their right to make use of that property as they see fit. Taking your argument to its logical conclusion, any intellectual property would have no value and anybody could, at any time, appropriate that intellectual property for their own use with no consequence.
irishfanjho15
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I think we should just arrest Al Gore. If he wouldn't have created the internet we wouldn't have this problem.
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Buster Bluth
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I certainly don't consider it stealing, and I also consider it victimless. I don't pay the corporation when I borrow a DVD from a friend, and some countries see it just like that. If suppose I should go to Switzerland, where they state very clearly that downloading anything for personal use is completely legal (as long as you don't sell it). But then I'd be far away from South Bend and what good does that do me?!
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Buster Bluth
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We should arrest Al Gore for being a POS and lying to everyone about the environment so he can profit a billion dollars.
irishfanjho15
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We'd have to arrest a lot of people under the criteria of being a POS, lying to everyone, and profiting a billion dollars.
Walter White
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If this agreement does exist, then why has it taken the Fed so long to make this arrest. The timing is kind of strange considering it happened the day after the SOPA blackout...
Could it possibly be a retaliation?
Zwidmanio
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I certainly don't consider it stealing, and I also consider it victimless. I don't pay the corporation when I borrow a DVD from a friend, and some countries see it just like that. If suppose I should go to Switzerland, where they state very clearly that downloading anything for personal use is completely legal (as long as you don't sell it). But then I'd be far away from South Bend and what good does that do me?!
Well, by definition it would be stealing. If you choose to see it otherwise, that's your right. I also don't know if it's victimless...don't get me wrong, I feel no pity for the corporations that have exploited and stolen from artists for decades, but I am friends/relatives with too many starving artists for me to hold the view that their work and rights to exploit their work mean nothing. If you are depriving them, in any way, of their ability to make a living off of their talents then I believe I have found your victims.
I also don't know if the DVD analogy works for me though simply because when you're talking about a DVD you're looking at one piece of physical property. Obviously, there are no laws against sharing that piece of property. You could borrow that DVD, watch it, and even pass it along to others to watch. This is a relatively slow process.
However, if you were to make a copy (or multiple copies) of that DVD then you would be infringing on somebody's copyright and are able to disseminate the material even faster. If you were to upload a digital copy then you could make the contents of that DVD available to millions of people.
I think at this juncture we'll probably just have to agree to disagree. If we were in Switzerland, I'd have no argument. I don't believe our laws are perfect but I support them to the extent that they provide the capability to protect those that I feel deserve protection.
Funny enough, generally I'd probably fall closer to your side of the argument than most, but your views are just extreme enough that I've found myself on the other side for once. Thanks for sharing