Copyfight the Power!

[Willen]

In a few years DVDs will be obsolete in favor of IPods and other such devices anyway so corporations aren't going to lower their prices on their DVDs now when it won't make that much of a difference in their capital.

I always chuckle when people say that the combination of disk and flash based players and the non-physical media content downloaded and stored on them will make physical copies like CD, DVD and Blu-ray obsolete. Why? Quality issues aside, most people don't want to be tied to a PC to enjoy the content that they paid for (or not) on whichever device they choose. Say you want to put the digital copy of the movie Wanted on that iPod. Well, guess what? You'd need a computer to do that since the iPod isn't a standalone device. So are all the other similar devices. Some will argue that the few units that offer some form of memory card slot can be used stand-alone. Well, in that case, we are substituting one form of media (DVD) for another (typically microSD, like with the slotMusic format).

With physical media, if I want to watch that DVD of Wanted I bought, I just pop it into my DVD player in my living room on my 46" HDTV. Or the DVD player in the bedroom. Or my friend's portable DVD player. Or my notebook computer's DVD drive. Or my PS3. Or my friend's Xbox. And via my PC, I can transfer the legit digital copy (or via certain methods, an "illegal" copy) to an iPod. And I don't need an internet connection to do it either. Or a computer to store the downloaded copy onto. Not to mention that downloading a high quality copy generally takes hours, if not days.

But let's say I changed my mind and I'm suddenly in the mood for a Xmas themed movie like Elf. With the iPod, I'd have to already have to have it on the player to beat the time it takes me to pull it off my shelf and load it into my DVD player to get it started. At the best case (if Elf isn't on the iPod), if my computer was already running (booting up Windows would only make it worse, especially Vista) and I already had a copy of the movie on the PC ready to transfer, and the cord for connecting the iPod to the TV was already connected, I'd probably still not have it playing before the DVD started. And that's not considering the definite possible difference in video and audio quality between the full DVD and the even more compressed digital copy.

And prices of DVDs have gone down. Not for the new releases (at least not yet), but older catalog titles can usually be had for between $5 - $10. And sometimes for less.

In terms of AMVs well, I would say 4/5ths of all the music I currently own (via cd) I heard from an amv. I liked the song so much I researched the artist and then went and bought the cd. However, before buying an entire cd I did find some of their other music online and listened to it. Buying 10-15 songs for about a dollar a piece now can get expensive and I want to make sure its worth it to buy it in the first place. Having said that, now I have a horde of cds that are really nothing more than coasters since all of my cd players don't work anymore and I have moved all of my music to my MP3 player.

I do the same thing for a lot of the new music I own, but I'm not quoting this paragraph just to agree with you. I'm just wondering if you don't have a DVD player, game console (PlayStation, Xbox, and most other non-Nintendo models), or a computer with a CD-ROM/CD-RW/DVD-ROM/DVD-RW drive, which can all play music CDs just fine.

However the reality of it is the rich want to get richer and so they choose to sue instead of working to find a solution to this problem.

I don't agree with how the MPAA and RIAA handle things, but believe it or not, it's not just about money. If you've read Phade's post about the Wind-up Records issue it boils down to this (emphasis by me):

Now let me make this clear: None of the actions taken by the band, label, or their lawyers had anything to do with evil greed, the dis/approval of the artistic value of the fan works available here, publicity the band gains by this site, or anything else along those lines. The entire issue revolves around nothing else but their desire to maintain the enforceability of the copyright on their songs. By having something concerning this site dropped on the desk of the band’s lawyer, they had no choice but to act in a way that protects the copyright of the band according to the law. If nothing appeared on their desk about the site, nothing would have happened. End of story.

Now, it's possible that they are enforcing their copyright in an effort to make more money by forcing people to buy full albums and not offering inexpensive singles. But it's also possible that they want to control how their music is distributed and by whom (even if it's to be given away for free). If they can somehow get some money from it, great. After all, most people (yes, even the rich) want to get richer.

[Odinsdragondaughter]

Something I find ironic about the copyright war is that many (probably even most) artists don't even own the copyright to their work. That gets handed over to the publisher when the artist sells their work to get that first paycheck. Sure there might be royalties paid to the artists, but how many times have we heard about royalties not getting paid while the publishers are still making huge profits? The most I would hope for as an artist is to get credit for my work. :-/

[trythil]

News about Obama is everywhere, so I'm not going repeat much of them. But of particular importance to file sharing, Obama has always been big on net neutrality (WoW player as FCC co-chair!) and copyright policies.

Yeah, I'll believe Obama/Biden are big on "copyright policies" (in the way that I, and presumably others here, want them to be) when I start seeing Obama endorse and sign legislation like the proposed Eric Eldred Act.

Until then, all they've got is a bunch of nice-but-ultimately-empty sound bites that can be bent to fit whatever their latest commitment is. In a word: nothing.

One thing I believe that corporations should realize everytime they are claiming to "lose profits because people are downloading their products" is that you can't really lose what you didn't have in the first place.

This argument doesn't work because it relies on the questionable premise that the cost of developing a product has been entirely paid for in some way that does not rely on sales of copies of that product.

In some fields, such as computer software, this can be done. Commercially-funded open-source programs are a great example: a company or group of companies pay people to work on a product, from funds that come from elsewhere. (Red Hat and Canonical are examples of this; Red Hat produces Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Canonical produces Ubuntu. Both make their money from services associated with the product. Sun also does this.)

Some musicians and other types of artists can also make a living this way. They derive their income from touring, fan funding, contracts, or side jobs. Brad Sucks pulls this off as a way to finance his albums, and Jonathan Coulton might be another example. (He did Still Alive for Valve.) The Blender Institute (makers of the open 3D films Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny) finances their artists by grants -- Elephants Dream was partially funded by the Netherlands Media Art Institute -- and DVD sales.

But for channels that have traditionally relied on selling copies of product, unauthorized copying can really hurt them. The argument "you can't lose what you didn't have in the first place" really doesn't work when you take it to the logical extreme of "no one pays for copies of your product", and the only way you have of recouping development costs is by, well, selling copies.

Unauthorized copying can really hurt you, too. Saying that it's okay is just a pretense for Big Media to step up DRM and defective-by-design products. Sure, DRM may be fundamentally broken from a strict technological sense, but just because it's fundamentally broken doesn't mean that it can't be terrifically annoying.

It also doesn't prevent Big Media from seeking legal and social measures (like this Microsoft-backed propaganda program) to mold copyright to their will.

It's your decision as to whether this is a good thing. Frankly, I think the outcome of "they aren't losing anything anyway" sucks.

Here's a better idea: wean yourself off of all-rights-reserved content, and support work that respects your rights. It's hard to do; indeed, it's impossible to completely execute if you plan to keep doing AMVs. But I think you can implement that program by degrees.

[Sukunai]

Interesting term 'enabling'.

Is my ISP an enabler? What about my newhosting service? I pay these people good money, and I do it through credit card. Are they being scabs for knowingly enabling me, and even making a profit while doing it?

What? does anyone really think I need broadband and unlimited sums of gigs of monthly bandwidth to play WoW and get Linux ISOs?

Is it possible there are actually fools that think I need 100 dvd spindles of blanks for 30 bucks just to make regular backups of mundane computer data?

[Vivaldi]

What? does anyone really think I need broadband and unlimited sums of gigs of monthly bandwidth to play WoW and get Linux ISOs?

Is it possible there are actually fools that think I need 100 dvd spindles of blanks for 30 bucks just to make regular backups of mundane computer data?

Maybe because they can't prove shit with only mildly circumstantial evidence, and if they could, the quality of the justice system would go down the drain. and I'm pretty darn sure you know this.

[guy07]

I blame Canada. : /