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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11695416

Obviously various industries are against the law. It's opens the door to fix strange holes in their IP laws, like one that would let copy right holders shut down sites that are using their IP. And did anyone else know that there's no equivalent of Fair Use in the UK?

On a more general note, if you're country were to edit its laws related to intellectual property what would you like to see changed?

Very interesting, obviously the most important conflict is yet to come...

I've noticed a weird trend in this debate. There is this group called the "pirate party", a single issue political party that has risen up in some parts of Europe and Canada. They really interested me, until I perused their forums and ideas. They want nothing less than the absolute end to intellectual property, which, seems like using a nuclear bomb to drive in a nail.

A friend on facebook recently put up this idiotic rant about how piracy is the way to free disemination of information, and how the ruling elite want to stop it because it might empower people to rise up and learn things. I tend to think the pirate party and other "advocates" see it in the same way, as if they are fighting against this Orwellian behemoth, when it is really only the RIAA and MPAA that are trying to shut down piracy sites to stop people from seeing free movies or getting free music. Scientific journals, book publishers, these groups are either too apolitical or, frankly, don't have enough political clout to be relevant in this debate, and for the most part, intellectuals and academics share the desire for public access to knowledge. blah, I forget where I was going, but basically, the fight for free access isn't really, or at least, shouldn't be seen as, some liberatory movement, because the only people we are fighting against are Record execs and movie studios, with the money to influence policy.

I'm going to try and follow this, see when that money starts to come into the picture, but it does seem like the UK is at least weighing options that might be beneficial, not in terms of "freeing people" with access to information, but in terms of not having ridiculous restrictions on how people use data they are already paying for (monthly internet fees).

Its sad, because there is already a general model set up for how this could work with TV. You don't pay directly to TV and movie studios for your cable, you pay a provider who works out the copyright at that end. It is obvious to see why the RIAA and MPAA don't want a similar set up with the internet, but it really seems illogical to me that we would accept that they have the right to sue people for downloading a song. lol, I'm sure I've gone away from the topic entirely, so I'll stop while there is some sembalance of a point there

Originally posted by inimalist
Very interesting, obviously the most important conflict is yet to come...

I've noticed a weird trend in this debate. There is this group called the "pirate party", a single issue political party that has risen up in some parts of Europe and Canada. They really interested me, until I perused their forums and ideas. They want nothing less than the absolute end to intellectual property, which, seems like using a nuclear bomb to drive in a nail.

A friend on facebook recently put up this idiotic rant about how piracy is the way to free disemination of information, and how the ruling elite want to stop it because it might empower people to rise up and learn things. I tend to think the pirate party and other "advocates" see it in the same way, as if they are fighting against this Orwellian behemoth, when it is really only the RIAA and MPAA that are trying to shut down piracy sites to stop people from seeing free movies or getting free music. Scientific journals, book publishers, these groups are either too apolitical or, frankly, don't have enough political clout to be relevant in this debate, and for the most part, intellectuals and academics share the desire for public access to knowledge. blah, I forget where I was going, but basically, the fight for free access isn't really, or at least, shouldn't be seen as, some liberatory movement, because the only people we are fighting against are Record execs and movie studios, with the money to influence policy.

I'm going to try and follow this, see when that money starts to come into the picture, but it does seem like the UK is at least weighing options that might be beneficial, not in terms of "freeing people" with access to information, but in terms of not having ridiculous restrictions on how people use data they are already paying for (monthly internet fees).

Its sad, because there is already a general model set up for how this could work with TV. You don't pay directly to TV and movie studios for your cable, you pay a provider who works out the copyright at that end. It is obvious to see why the RIAA and MPAA don't want a similar set up with the internet, but it really seems illogical to me that we would accept that they have the right to sue people for downloading a song. lol, I'm sure I've gone away from the topic entirely, so I'll stop while there is some sembalance of a point there


I know where you were going with that first part:

You were going to say something about "nuking" the system hurting the artists. The artists want to do what they love to do. Taking all of their money away takes away their ability to do what they love. How can you make a $200 Million Transformers movie if you won't make any of it back (except for product merchandising and other contract stuff that is not directly tied to watching the movie)?



Also, on that second part, yes, the ISPs (internet service providers) need to stop meddling with sh*t and just bus the data. They should be concerned with maintaining and upgrading their networks, only (of course, marketing and such will also be concerns, but their primary concerns should be busing data, not trying to dip in TV studio's money but getting between the viewer and the TV studio.) Some TV stations direclty fund and manage their own shows. Example would be ABC Studios where the show are done directly by ABC. Other cases, organizations make the shows and "advertize" the shows to TV stations to fund/pay them to do the show/movie.

The viewers can now access the TV shows direclty on the TV studio's web page instead of having to pay a cable provider (that is also an ISP) to give them the feed. This is causing a loss of cable and satellite subrscribers and they want to "trap" their customers some how so they are starting to charge by the byte for services. For example, AT&T just switched their cellular data plan to 2GB a month. If you exceed that, then you pay a large sum for each GB you go over. (You can get a business plan that allows 5GB a month...but that was really the old plan.) Also, some ISPs are limiting their monthly bandwidth in the very same way AT&T is with their datanetwork. Comcast caps their montly data at 250GB. Cox has a cap of 50-60GB a month.


The problem with the whole "capping and charging of post-cap adventurers" is completely moot to begin with:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05/isps-costs-revenues-dont-support-data-cap-argument.ars

They are making more money than ever while refusing to invest in upgrading bandwidth or upgrading within any reason. They have got us by the bawlz on this and it's very frustrating. This is where the FCC should step in and say, "hey, you have to meet this and this average bandwidth for your customers or face a steep fine." There's also the fact that we lose billions of dollars a year due to our business being conducted on slow networks.


Originally posted by Bicnarok
What bothers me is the ammount of money "artists" make, whether it be actors or music groups. Ok they deserve some appreciation for thier hard work, but come on multi millions !!. Not only that ,the parasite companies who probably make an even bigger killing because of someone elses work.

If DVD´s CD´s and cinema prices cheaper, making them no longer a rich mans luxury in some countries, then no problem with that.

But it´s not the way it is so Ill continue visiting sites like Demonoid through my proxy until something changes.

Ok I know this is only part of the problem, when you see sports folk like football players getting millions for playing some daft game. Or Managers getting millions in bonuses but sacking loads of workers at the same time.

The whole system produces piracy, that´s the main problem.

That's economics 101:

Supply and demand.

If the actor, athlete, musician, etc. is in high demand, they will be paid accordingly.

If there were an overabundance of NFL level football players, I'm quite sure that they would be paid a lot less and we would have multiple NFL types of leagues. (no, not CFL or EFL, only...I'm talking closer to 12 different NFLs with each league having roughly the same exact talent from the coaches, managers, to the players.)

Same thing with musicians. There are only so many artists that are "multi-platinum" worthy and that is deemed by some old rich white guy almost 100% of the time. It's really creating the supply and the demand (yes, music studios really do have their cake and eat it too.)

Originally posted by dadudemon
I know where you were going with that first part:

You were going to say something about "nuking" the system hurting the artists. The artists want to do what they love to do. Taking all of their money away takes away their ability to do what they love. How can you make a $200 Million Transformers movie if you won't make any of it back (except for product merchandising and other contract stuff that is not directly tied to watching the movie)?

actually, its more about everything that isn't art. I somewhat agree that it is possible for a musician or even people making a movie to be fiscally successful without intellectual property, even in the modern market, however, research, business, all these other things that rely on IP to make profit, would be destroyed. No medical company is going to invest millions into a drug that they wont see profit from, no research team is going to devote time and money into something that they don't control.

it was more my experience on the forums with these "pirate" people, they seemed to think they could "redisign" the market so that people designed the newer, better car, for shits and giggles, or because it made them feel good. I don't deny there are people for whom that is true, but it is pretty naievely utopian imho.

The worst part is that they are recommending Canada drop IP while we exist in a world where every other country still has it. Basically, all R&D would just leave our nation.

thats what I meant by nuking. Sure, we can all agree that it is retarded that the RIAA is sueing college students for millions of dollars, the answer isn't destroying all technological development in Canada.

to keep this rant going, my best example are the rats whose genetic code are copyrighted, that are designed to get certain cancers or what have you. These rats are, essentially, the forfront of bio-medical research, stem cells, whatever. Not being able to patent that rat would cause so many potential avenues of research to just die, and imho, considering the potential, it is unethical to even consider this.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Also, on that second part, yes, the ISPs (internet service providers) need to stop meddling with sh*t and just bus the data. They should be concerned with maintaining and upgrading their networks, only (of course, marketing and such will also be concerns, but their primary concerns should be busing data, not trying to dip in TV studio's money but getting between the viewer and the TV studio.) Some TV stations direclty fund and manage their own shows. Example would be ABC Studios where the show are done directly by ABC. Other cases, organizations make the shows and "advertize" the shows to TV stations to fund/pay them to do the show/movie.

The viewers can now access the TV shows direclty on the TV studio's web page instead of having to pay a cable provider (that is also an ISP) to give them the feed. This is causing a loss of cable and satellite subrscribers and they want to "trap" their customers some how so they are starting to charge by the byte for services. For example, AT&T just switched their cellular data plan to 2GB a month. If you exceed that, then you pay a large sum for each GB you go over. (You can get a business plan that allows 5GB a month...but that was really the old plan.) Also, some ISPs are limiting their monthly bandwidth in the very same way AT&T is with their datanetwork. Comcast caps their montly data at 250GB. Cox has a cap of 50-60GB a month.

The problem with the whole "capping and charging of post-cap adventurers" is completely moot to begin with:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05/isps-costs-revenues-dont-support-data-cap-argument.ars

They are making more money than ever while refusing to invest in upgrading bandwidth or upgrading within any reason. They have got us by the bawlz on this and it's very frustrating. This is where the FCC should step in and say, "hey, you have to meet this and this average bandwidth for your customers or face a steep fine." There's also the fact that we lose billions of dollars a year due to our business being conducted on slow networks.

I don't see this as entirely problematic though, at least it is charging on a per-use basis, rather than just cutting bandwidth to p2p users, which still goes on

I pay a reasonanble amount per month, and I don't go over. Sure, I have to be careful not to download 8 or 9 complete 6 season runs in the same month, but it at least seems like a model that could be modified so that the MPAA and RIAA get some compensation that they think is due to them.

though, yes, I'd love something that ensured my ISP always provided me with minimum bandwidth, but I think I've even got some type of guarantee like that in my contract (minus the p2p bullshit)