Drug addicts [mostly] hurt themselves...if they are silly enough then good luck to them.

Piracy on the other hand hurts others...and NOT the pirate <--- they tend to profit instead.

As to the 'we' ....druggies, etc has no relevance to either this thread OR the website it's on, whereas Piracy is actually what the thread is about...and...the site is within the affected industry....

I'm wondering - how enforceable are the EU resolutions going to be?

For people in the EU buying EU products it will be very enforceable.

For people not in the EU buying products not in the EU, the EU doesn't care.

But what about when the product is American and the person buying is in the EU, or when the product was made in the EU and the person is in the USA? This could lead to a lot of clashes over international law.

Same goes with any other country - and throw into the mess that some countries have different opinions of how much international laws affect them. Even in the USA, there's a lot of debate about how involved we should be with international organizations (some which we even helped create, such as the UN), and whether or not international "laws" should supersede our own laws and regulations.

A pebble in the pond from the peanut gallery .....

Cast your minds back a few years ago when that intro clip appeared on virtually all DVDs at the time about the kid in the bedroom turning on the PC, and we then got 30secs worth of "Piracy is theft", flashing logos, pics, dire threats etc etc, and all the associated rationale. After a while it got on my nerves "of course its friggin theft - go away I want to watch the damn movie .... grrr" (on most DVDs it was set so you could not skip it), although later some DVD Players got round that.

Totally illogically, that dam video clip bugged the hell out of me, got real paranoid about it at one time

Anyway, my son was a record producer at the time, and I related my reaction to him, and he chuckled. In his circles it was quite a topic of discussion, as it appears that research showed that a large number of teenagers were not aware it was actually theft, not just messing about, justifying peripheral issues, or trolling the usual excuses, they really were not aware it was theft as an overall principle ........ The video clip was released to combat that.

I found that mind blowing, unreal .... still do. With that mindset, its hardly surprising emotions run high about this, also indicates a "back to basics" approach is needed somewhere along the line. Would not stop piracy of course, but at least you get the chance to leave the start line on the issue ....

Regards
Zy

Kryo asked the following question: "Is banning pirates from the internet going too far, or is it justified?"

My compairison clearly aimed at it, if our politicians (i'm in the EU) try to tackle a small problem with an axe while using a scissors to tackling a big problem, it clearly shows how disproportioned the measure is. The reason why such measure is even talked about is because there are plenty of lobbys for one side, and none for the other. As such, (specially aimed at the ethic or morals referred previously) where's the ethic in such disparity?

As for druggies [Mostly]hurting themselves... well, when they fall ill, it's the society that pays, not sure how's the wellfare over in the US, but in europe it's mostly statewise (doesn't rely on insurances), so when a druggie needs hospitalar assistance, i have to pay for the services. Not to mention that the economic loss of lives is far greater than the economic loss of income, specially cause i don't believe that removing piracy would have such a big effect on revenue as the industry thinks.

Besides, there's 2 types of pirates you're putting together on the same basket (erroneously), people who download, and people who crack/illegally distribute products. There's no doubts about what the latter is, but the former isn't quite on the same level is he? I mean, without cracked games (for instance) you could download all the games you wanted, they wouldn't work...

I think he forgot the sarcasm tags.

The content industry's definition of "piracy" is any time you make a copy of something, even if it's for legal fair use or backup reasons.

They are little more than a criminal cartel. This is not being done for the benefit of software companies, it's being done for the benefit of the media industry.

Anyone who's smart doesn't use BitTorrent or P2P. At least publicly. Those that actually know what they are doing use something like a 256-bit SSL-encrypted NNTP connection with a good Usenet provider (like one that doesn't keep download logs). Unless the European Union plans to buy massive amounts of supercomputers to break the SSL encryption on every single connection, they won't be able to enforce anything.

You will NEVER eliminate "piracy". No amount of draconian copy protection, no amount of Orwellian legislation and no amount of huffing and puffing will change that. Every attempt by the MAFIAA to squash "piracy" has only caused it to rise in popularity. First they went after Napster and shut it down. Then things like Kazaa and Gnutella rose to take it's place. Then they went after those. And then BitTorrent rose to take it's place.

File sharing and "pirating" was once an obscure activity that only the computer elite participated in or even knew about. The MAFIAA played a large role in popularizing music and film "piracy" by drawing the public's attention to the fact that you can download music online.

The more you attempt to do battle with "pirates", the more legitimate customers get caught in the crossfire and get harmed. By trying to smite "pirates", you also end up smiting your paying customers.

To answer a few other points :

1.Reducing software "piracy" will not reduce software prices, it will increase profit margins for the large software companies. Do you really think that large publishers like EA are going to lower their prices if it could be demonstrated these measures had a significant effect on software "piracy"?

2.Software "piracy" is not the same thing as stealing from the store. Not even close. Please can the holier than thou deontological ethics.

If I steal a car from someone, they will then no longer has possession of that car. Because I stole the car, they no longer have it and therefore can no longer user it. There is a tangible and quantifiable loss.

If I steal boxed software from a store, then that store no longer has possession of that boxed copy and therefore can no longer sell it. Again, quantifiable loss.

If I "pirate" a piece of software, it's simply making a copy. Downloading "pirated" software doesn't take it out of someone else's possession. You could argue that in some or even a lot of cases, people will "pirate" instead of purchasing and therefore deprive them of income and that may be true in some cases. And yes, artists deserve to be compensated for their work and those who have the money to buy something but pirate it anyways are scum.

However, there really isn't a quantifiable loss in the sense that it's impossible to know how many people had the money to purchase the product to begin with and how many people would have even purchased the product given an inability to pirate it. You simply can't know that information about each and every person downloading a given piece of software therefore you can't use "piracy" figures to say how many money you lost. It's like a company counting every person in the world that didn't buy their product as a lost sale.

Phew - my faith in humanity is restored   

He got me flat footed that time .....

Regards
Zy

You all should start a church. Seriously. The amount of vitriolic hatred that people in the "piracy is the end of the world crowd" is amazing. It's like you've all declared a jihad. (Public executions? Get a grip)

For the record, I legally bought Sins. I legally bought Gal Civ II and it's two expansions. I have dozens of games that I've legally bought on Steam. I have shelves full of game boxes that I've legally bought.

Saying that Usenet exists isn't helping people pirate. That's like saying that I'm helping pirates by saying that pirated material is available on web.

Well you have to admit. Public executions would solve the problem.



The reason The Great State of America gets 1 million canadian immigrants each year, while they only get about 10,000 amercians is because we tax, at most, about 40% of a worker's income. And you can blame liberals for that.

I've actually seen pretzels that are less convoluted than this thread.

Really? That must explain why Alaska, as the largest state, gets more immigrants than any other state.

No - wait, that right. They don't.

Because it's frick'n' *COLD*.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the U.S. had high immigration rates even when the marginal tax rate was at 80%-90%, and the absolute rate was almost as high (in the wealthy brackets)

Thy theory, it doth not stand up well, for you chose not to feed it with facts.

Jonnan

Yes, good point. Canada is cold. It's women are ugly. And they even tax the polar bears. It is God's curse on humankind.

I know America is superior in more ways than just tax. But the tax is a factor.

Two mistakes:

-Saying EA is stealing. Are they really? If they are, you can go to court over it if you want.

-The whole "two wrongs make a right" philosophy. Sorry, but just because wrong to you does not give you the right to commit another wrong against them.



At the time, most software developers were making their money elsewhere. Most of them were also in the hardware business, and many of them just did it as a hobby.

These days, software development is like any other job: It puts food on the table and pays the bills. That money has to come from somewhere. It's not magic, it doesn't make itself.