Your opinion on piracy?

I live in India. Piracy is illegal but not considered immoral in my country. Pirated movies and games are publicly sold in the market. Infact most of the shops don't contain original CDs only pirated CDs (Unbelievable but true). I also cannot afford to buy original content. So, I mostly rely on piracy. I know it's bad but I have no other choice. An average man earns only a few dollars in our country. What is your stand on piracy.
EDIT-
I don't encourage piracy in any way. And I'm not spamming. I just want your opinion. Also remember that pirated goods are publicly sold in my country and it is not considered immoral. (I'm in no way encouraging it though) -EDIT

Ah, is this spam?

This is barsport forum right? We can talk on any topic here. If I'm wrong correct me.

I know it's bad but I have no other choice.

You have the choice to walk away.

I think diesel is too expensive, but I don't drill into the tanks of the petrol station.
Just because it isn't difficult to steal doesn't mean to say that you should.

Edit: Isn't it odd? I don't ever recall Universal Studios or Warner Brothers, or even Disney ever spamming this forum (I'm not saying they wouldn't...), but pirates, well, don't get me started.

I know it's bad but I have no other choice.

Trust me you will live without consuming garbage media companies produce, its not like your starving to death stealing bread, your stealing to fufill a want, not a need

Learn the difference between the two

I remember buying a book from a street seller in India, Chennai i think. It had about 7 pages missing and some of the others replicated to make up for it. haha. Other than that it was perfect, did make reading it a bit tricky though. Large parts of India are so poor i would have thought just getting them on-line and internet savvy was far more important than whether your copy of this or that is legit. But that's not to say it's right to steel i guess, i think the fault lie's with big business not the consumer. Maybe support open source more.

Maybe support open source more

Open source movies and TV series?
How does that work then?

@OP: I'm guessing your livelihood does not depend on (your own) intellectual property?

An average man earns only a few dollars in our country. What is your stand on piracy. Do you think sites like thepiratebay should be blocked?

Well to be true! whether you can afford or not if you take stuff free from Torrents that would otherwise had to be paid for then you are stealing! but then if you are going on do it for good like try to buy books and other educational stuff because it supports the Maker that is the author or if you really can't buy them and do not have any other way like Money in your pocket and for the sake of Education if you can find a PDF of that book, do it ,Have seen a lot of Poverty on Indian roads and INEQUALITY of INCOME the people who have does not seem to care for the one's who do not have.

In a nutshell first try best to buy stuff that is Owned as it many times supports the author of that thing or else if you are really poor then go with it and make sure you are doing that for educating yourself for good.

[tirade]

As a "content producer", I can tell you that making sure the little guy (the artist) gets paid is roughly zero on list of important things for most publishers.. and paying them as little as legally possible is the standard. Artists see only a tiny portion of the profit produced, and it isn't by ongoing residuals. A good friend was a screen actor in the eighties, in a long list of movies and tv shows ranging from Doogie Howser to the movie Explorers. He got a check the other day for "Explorers" while we were chatting.. and I'll bet most here have seen the movie. Seven dollars residual. Quarterly. Now you know. We've become friends since he developed the same disease I have. The income to an artist for their work is up front, residuals make up real little money, even in cases where broadcast is still active (Explorers is a film that is in constant syndication). You might think that half a dozen movies and a bunch of TV episodes might provide you with a modest residual income. You'd be wrong. He's just as screwed financially as the rest of us. However, the movie studio and the tv stations all still make tons of money off the advertising during syndication, and licensing when it's on pay channels. The actor sees virtually none of that.

In 2010, I took a series of photos of President Obama when he landed with his entourage in our relatively small town, incidentally causing damage to the local private airport's runway due to the weight of armored helicopters and ground transport vehicles of the motorcade. Those photos are the most profitable "public interest" photography I have done, they were carried by Yahoo news, CNN, as well as the local news outlets.. twice, first when it was the news of the day and the second when the airport owners found out it was going to cost several hundred thousand dollars to resurface the damaged runway and appealed to the fed for assistance. It's important to note that it is a private airfield and not a public airport, the damage was to private and not public property. Anyway....

Do you know what I was able to get for the rights as a non-contract photographer? For GLOBAL rights, for FIVE YEARS... a grand total of one hundred and fifty dollars. In contrast, for private contract work, I underprice everyone else in the market when I charge a hundred dollars an hour for studio work. When I can work for money, I come cheap because people have to be willing to accommodate me. To make any money at all, you have to be under contract when the content is produced, particularly for news-type content that is time sensitive. I should also point out that my shots were the only ones that were gotten on the ground that day, in fact it was Hearst's own photographer who purchased the shots from me- after not getting the crucial images himself. Don't get me started on the fact he makes six digits not getting the shots I consistently do....The saddest part? The images were stolen by multiple outlets from the publisher I sold to (Hearst). It's a story told hundreds of times a day across the world. The publisher made their profits, the lawyers made theirs.. many thousands in both cases.. but the content PRODUCER gets shafted. It used to be that if you went to a photo studio, you bought prints of the portraits, and retailers supported that by not allowing people to scan in and print copies. The photographer made his money by selling the prints. NOW, retailers don't even try, and home scanners can do as good a job. The photographer therefore only gets paid for one print these days. I've watched several pro studios go under because of this. When I do paying gigs, I skip the pretense. I charge for the sitting, since it's the only time I can control the images realistically. I give the customer the "digital negatives".. I don't have a desire of the ability to try and chase down "pirated" prints.

Over the next few days I am deciding whether to accept an invitation to undertake a local news photoblog.. I do a lot of local public interest photography. The newspapers take three shots and walk away.. I take hundreds and donate the galleries. I've become depended upon by local theater groups for stage photography (I can't be paid for taking photos of a performance of a copyrighted play without paying fees myself), Parades and Cultural events (again, lots of interest, but nobody pays), and that type of thing. The ONLY reason that I am considering it is not because the publisher asking me is going to pay me (AOL Time/Warner is parent co)- they basically will just provide me with gallery space and visibility- but because if I publish THROUGH them, I could theoretically leverage their legal department into copyright defense of my photography. That's how tough it is for an "artist". Willing to work for FREE, just to have the copyright protection and visibility to an audience of about ten thousand regular readers. I'm an extreme case to be sure, but I know of others who have gone as far. When it comes to being a content producer in a media that is easily and wantonly stolen with little repercussions.. you can't defend your work on your own. You need to work for someone else, the bottom line is that you need to work for a lawyer, and that lawyer is going to make the lion's share of the profit. This is particularly bad in cases where the art form requires large expenses on the part of the artist.. instruments, equipment, expendables and media. I took out a three thousand dollar loan weeks ago to finance the purchase of equipment.. and the majority of it's use will end up creative commons license. The worst story of all is when I got a cease and desist order from a lawyer- who was hired to go after ME by someone who copied MY image illegally, and then claimed that I stole it from them! Happily I did in fact have ways to prove origination, and the lawyer backed off- but otherwise I would have had to hire a lawyer myself or pay a settlement to the thief!

The most realistic method of getting anything to help cover my costs when I do these things? Passing the hat. I'll be setting up to do that electronically soon, a setup with PayPal by which people can click and donate. I do my photography for my own reasons, and even if I am not paid I wouldn't be stopping, but at the same time I think that I ought to at least not be taking a monetary loss when others are using the content produced for monetary gain. A perfect example is the local business council.. the group is "nonprofit", and sponsors events designed to attract attention and business into the downtown area, which because they are public events, I end up photographing (like the town's annual "taste of downtown and brew festival"). Now, these events in reality are advertising events for the businesses. However, I get approached not by the businesses, I get approached by the City Council's office asking if the non-profit "Arts Council" can use my photography for their marketing of the event. Best of all.. they ask to use it only giving "Photo Credit". In the end, who actually ends up tossing me a few dollars? The parents of some kid I happened to get in a shot. Consistently, it isn't any of the businesses getting professional ad photography.. and trying to fight this takes a LOT of effort. The kind of effort that I simply don't have the inclination or the legal connections to fight. I'm disabled, and my photography is a way to escape from some pretty bad stuff. I can't waste my "good" days angrily trying to hunt down copyright infringement.. and it would make it all something that adds stress and trouble - the exact opposite of the reason I do it in the first place. I care more about the art than the profit. That's what makes me a sucker. :drooling_face:

Content production isn't done for money anymore, not by the artist. The artist is a commodity and nothing more. The screaming about content protection will help the little guy as a side effect, but understand the laws being tossed around are about protecting the publishing houses and NOT the artists. In some ways, I guess I am lucky that I don't need to do this for a living.. because I would hate to think how tough it has to be for someone who does.

Telling: I was rejected by Kickstarter for a proposal of a calendar of photography produced by patients of chronic illness. Proceeds would finance art therapy photography classes for local hospitals for two dozen students, the financiers getting copies of the bound and printed calendar. Filed as a community arts project. This project was rejected (but six Burning Man floats sponsored by companies were approved the same day). Note that it wasn't even allowed to be run as a project.. not that it failed to generate interest; they simply disallowed due to the fact I was not proposing it as a part of a for-profit undertaking. Art and money rarely have similar goals. The reason given by Kickstarter (who claims to be a way to sponsor the arts) was that there was not ongoing profit potential. Explain to me how Burning Man floats provide ongoing profit potential! Even more to the point.. when did the definition of Art and Community get replaced with nothing but profit motives? Is art only Art if it can be used by others to make a profit?

[/tirade]

AWOL:

Maybe support open source more

Open source movies and TV series?
How does that work then?

@OP: I'm guessing your livelihood does not depend on (your own) intellectual property?

Well movies and TV. Is it really that outlandish an idea they have open source everything now. Car's Beer..you name it.

you name it.

An open source Beatles or Stones album?
Open source Avatar 2?
I don't think so.

Problem with the big media providers is that their business models did not adapt to the internet age.

Read once that many people still buy CD's / digital files after listening "illegal songs" - mind you iTunes is a killer app (now that's a bizz modell in the internet age)

I recall there was a similar discussion when the video recorder came and people could watch movies in their own time and skip commercials. History repeats itself :slight_smile:

-- update --

seen this link ? - http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,105076.0.html - isa internet age bizz model :slight_smile:

focalist:
Seven dollars residual. Quarterly. Now you know.

This is my problem with the protection of intellectual property. In many cases the producers don't in fact get anything. Just as an example you can buy movies like Gone With The Wind, which are "copyright" but all the people involved in their artistic production are dead (are almost all, I haven't checked every last one). The writer, directors, actors, producers, cameramen. The copyright is not there to protect them. And in any case it should have expired by now.

Compare this to the job done by policemen, or surgeons, or virtually anyone else. They get paid a salary, or by the hour. They don't get paid 50 years later because they did a good job today.

Exactly why I try to get any money I can up front, as getting it after the fact (after the purchaser has had opportunity to duplicate illegally) is virtually impossible.

As I said, I can't imagine trying to make a living as a musician or art photographer these days. The result is that a lot of real talent is left at the side of the road in favor of corporate-produced crap.

If you think paying for Gone With The Wind was ever going to benefit the actors, writers or anyone else but the lawyers of the movie house, I've got some beachfront property in Kansas...

Paul McCartney has said many times that if his income was based upon the Beatles, he would be flat broke.. but the agents, publishers, and attorneys have made millions if not BILLIONS of dollars on the work.

focalist:
As I said, I can't imagine trying to make a living as a musician or art photographer these days. .

This is what I would do ... put my music/art on the Internet. Get people interested. Then offer to do a gig at the local pub for cash up front (or in the case of art do a commission).

There will always be some piracy. Not a statement of right or wrong, but a simple statement of fact. Living next door to a third world country - Mexico - I can see they why - The products are advertised to a group of people who earn (on average) approx $70.00US a week. Some things cost less, but many things cost much more in Mexico. SO they see the advertising, they have little money for the product and someone comes along with a prated version. Are the going to spend 250 pesos, or get the pirate copy for 25 pesos ($2.00US)?

Another factor that drives piracy - The perceived value of the goods is far below the price of the goods. Don't want to pay that much for crap goods. OR - you buy the CD for $20.00US and there is only 1 good song and a bunch of crap songs as filler. No wonder teh 1 song was copied and shared. (probably less of a problem now that there are single song plans like iTunes out there)

A few years back a guy by the name of Phillippe Kahn (camera phone and Borland Turbo Pascal) wrote about piracy - related to Turbo Pascal - and admitted that there were many pirated copies of Turbo Pascal out there. And there were also many copies of Turbo Pascal that no one was using. He also believed in keeping the cost down so people COULD afford it and buy it. He delivered a product with a high perceived value and profited from doing that. Treat the customer well and he won't steal from you.

And another factor for piracy - Companies that treat their customers like crap. Customer no longer has any loyalty so he doesn't feel like he is hurting anyone, except for some screwed up company that just want to rip him off. Customers, like employees, are treated more like a liability than a asset. Companies that treat their customers properly will deal with less piracy. I don't want to rip off someone that delivers on their promise to me.

Pretty much all of my paying gigs do come as an offshoot of my volunteer stuff. Headshots and portfolios for the theatrical people, that sort of thing. If I were a business, I guess you would call it advertising.. except that the hours of volunteer work ratio to the amount of paid work is ridiculously low. A couple of headshot gigs for a hundred bucks each, from a theatre production lasting two months. Not a workable income, at best it just helps offset my costs in wear and tear and expendables. Think I may have made a total of a grand last year, and probably spent nearly as much on equipment repair.

The larger issue is that these laws are for the company's benefit and protection.. not for protecting the work of the people who create or assuring that the creator in any way gets some kind of a fair cut of the action.

Think of it this way.. there's little you could do legally if someone took an arduino project you made and wrote up, and took and made a commercial product from it. However, referencing the writeup and the project might be able to get you a job. Maybe as the janitor of the company that is making the product, mopping the CEO's office for minimum wage. See, it's all a matter of perspective!

How many businesses and online stores RIGHT NOW are based upon Arduino hobbyists? Quite a few. Does the Arduino team see any of the profit generated by these businesses? In some cases I think donations have been made, but by and large, I would suspect that Arduino sees very little despite the immense amount of effort put in... however they do it as Creative Commons by choice, as I do. Now, think about companies that are producing clones, capitalizing on the Arduino name.. I believe they ought to donate back to the project financially, but there's no law that is going to make them. If I were one of the core Arduino team, this might make me pretty angry. However, the last thing I'd want to do is spend any more energy being frustrated by it, or even worse, spending money trying to rectify it legally somehow.

For every person wanting to do something decent in the world, there's ten in line behind him trying to figure out a way to manipulate whatever it is to their own personal advantage. Nature of humans, I guess....

Many good points being made here on the issue of intellectual products flowing from creator to customer. I think it's the steps between creators and customers that lead to most of the problems both perceived and real. I think the only real long term answer is for the creators to try and use the modern Internet world to market and distribute products directly. I know it would take lots of lean times and luck to get 'noticed' and gain a following but there is real opportunity I think in trying to eliminate all the middle men and serve your customers directly.

Being independent in any profitable effort has never been an easy task but I do think that there are means that were never avalible in the past.

Lefty

I can't imagine trying to make a living as a musician or art photographer these days.

A good friend of my is photographer and he created a book - Een kleine preview… – Ode aan IJsland - and he is escorting (photographing) tourists in Iceland.

It maybe not made him a rich man but he has the time of his life :slight_smile:

a musician friend of mine started this campaign:

http://copylike.org/

imo the current copyright/patent laws are far outdated. I dont really know how to fix them though.

I would consider culture as essential to my life. So if someone only has the option of pirating music, or never listening to music, I would go with pirating. I myself have the option of not pirating, however I download a lot of music, as I am unwilling to pay prices which I find too high and which hardly benefit the artist. I do go out of my way to buy self produced CDs that artists sell at shows.

I also get really annoyed when people are not able to spare 2$ for the artist, but spend 10$ on beer the same night...

p.