LightStar, saying the Internet should be used for legal information transfer only is you giving a blank check to governments like China and Iran blocking sites like Facebook, since after all those sites are illegal in those countries.

To download a book, read it and delete it is qualitatively similar to going to a public library, taking a book, reading it and returning it without paying or asking permission from the copyright holder. The later is legal in USA so it makes no sense the former is not. And it is qualitatively different from downloading or getting it from a library, making phocopies and selling them.

Jow Blow is making no profit. The resellers are. That is a qualitative difference, not a matter of scale.

I'm glad we have sane laws here where Jow Blow is legal and the unauthorized re-sellers are not. Copyright laws were made to promote knowledge and progress not to ensure writter's profit much less to ensure distributor's profit. It's a shame those laws have been perverted so much in USA.

You are an idiot. Copyright laws promote knowledge and progress by insuring writers can profit from their work. The ability to make a living at it is what gives the writer the ability to continue writing.

Your country's lax copying laws and taxes on writable media achieve the same purpose, just in a highly socialized way. Under your system it doesn't much matter how popular your work is, you get a share of the tax revenue. Here, the people making the most popular material make the most money.

Well I lived in Japan for a little awhile, and before you say that is not what you meant by "Asia" I assure you Japan has it's fair share of issues with US businesses. There were a lot of fake louis vuitton and other designer bags and clothes there, fake computers there (they say Sony but that's not a real sony VAIO), as well as fairly easy access to pirated software. And not hiding in back alleys or anything. Estimates state that the US and Japan have some of the lowest piracy rates in the world and yet our (the US) government and our industry are some of the biggest asses about it. Sure industry might shake their head and say oh no no, you can't believe those numbers. Sure, be skeptical about the numbers, just as I am about the the cost to the industry which they are free to throw around, often rejecting the questioning of the methodology and ideology beyond them.

At any rate, at least with Japan, the government cares, on some level, so companies can try and go after these bigger groups, but China, what do they care? We're the enemy right?

It's interesting that Willy would directly compare a dictatorship to a democracy... and then say "dictate" policy. Although China isn't exactly a dictatorsihp, the people certainly have little say in policy which means its actually dictated to them. Despite the bitching on forums and on TV, most the countries we talk about otherwise are represented.

I don't consider you an idiot, otherwise why would I bother to debate with you? But I disagree with you. Promoting knowledge is the goal. Ensuring writters earn enough is the method to achieve the goal. The goal is more important than the method. Thus there are exceptions for the method when such exceptions better further the goal, like libraries. Besides writters don't need to earn money 70 years after death in order to write books.

But those exceptions are from old laws in USA. Modern laws no longer make exceptions in the favour of promoting knowledge. Copyright laws there have been reformed and remormed again so that nothing past 1923 has ever entered public domain if the holders filed the ever increasing extentions. Now they protect the rights of the people who lobbied for those laws, the distributors, rather than the authors or the public.

Old media, books, are freely accessible in libraries there in the USA because they existed back in the old days when the revolutionary spirit was high in USA. Revolutionaries who commited illegal acts against their nation, the British Empire, in order to stablish a new nation where they would be free of the empire's oppression. Human rights are more important than laws.

Modern media like films or software and new channels like Internet appeared when industrial lobbies were and keep being strong, thus the congress there has made no exceptions to copyright laws for new media and channels like they were done with books. Quite the opposite, they've reformed them to abuse copyright.

The day you consider laws are over human rights when you are not the one affected is the day you open the door to relinquish any right your ancestors got for you.

Nobody should have the legal right to dictate policy for other countries. But everybody has the moral right to help other people keep or obtain their human rights, even if against their local laws.

You're both right.

Copyright exists to allow creators a profit (ensuring more creation) while allowing society to benefit from the exchange of ideas (so others can use/build upon the creation).  They're competing interests, so an accommodation is made to maximize both.

At least that's the general idea.  At times the balance shifts from the 'sweet spot', but hopefully corrects over time. 

How simple would you like the answer?....this one is a no-brainer.

It is about the authority/permission to provide the access.

The author/publisher allows THEIR IP product to be 'distributed' via a Lending Library.

The Torrent/warez/pirate site does NOT have the author's/distributor's permission to distribute.

COPYRIGHT, people.

Look it up.

If the internet has accomplished one thing and only one thing very well, it has blurred things to the point that a lot of people think the world is gray and they can cross any line they want because accountability is as virtual as the world they live in.

Some things are still black and white. Pick a side and 'own' it. Instead of hiding behind laws that the people that wrote them don't even understand, just admit your fine with the illegal stuff that goes on. You don't care who poured their heart and soul, time and energy, sweat and tears into what ever someone decides they want to pirate to the rest of the world. You don't care if the author/creator is dependent on it for an income or whatever.

Just don't bitch about the folks who use those sights to plot the deaths of thousands. Or want to trade child porn and point each other to the latest hot torrents. Or the ones who look for others that may actually want to trade live children. And this stuff does go on, all over the web, in secret and right out in the open. And it will keep going on and on and on because so many want to ride the fence on all of this.

You can't have your cake and eat it to, with this. It's too big. Too complicated.  Many of the fence sitters will stay right where they are until it hits close to home and then it's to late and a damn shame because it didn't have to come to that.

The same standard that is applied to most types of liability cases, reasonable good faith effort. No one expects perfection, but you *are* expected to put a reasonable effort into it, and at the minimum act when someone brings a problem to your attention. Again I point to my experience at GameFAQS; we have a couple hundred thousand posts a day, and ~30 active volunteer moderators to police those posts. Do we review everything posted? Of course not. But we have a moderation system in place to allow the users themselves to bring violations to our attention. When someone marks something, it gets reviewed within 24-48 hours and dealt with if necessary.

Newzbin wasn't responding even when the copyright holder themselves brought violations to their attention, and in practice went out of their way to make the removal process as difficult as possible. That's no where near the reasonable good faith standard of behavior.

Including the US. The only real problem is when the material lent is machine-readable and it becomes possible to borrow the material and "return" it while retaining a copy (most libraries have CDs and DVDs now).

This is the entire argument in a nutshell. And the fact that there is no real difference between a guy who downloads something for personal use and a guy who downloads the same material to redistribute it (whether by burning discs or uploading for further downloads); Until the first guy deletes the material, it's only his conscience preventing him from being like the second guy. The first guy simply hasn't uploaded it *yet*.

One other problem with first sale is software. Under first sale, the owner can do literally ANYTHING with their copy, including decompiling the code, reverse engineering the programming and using it to your own purposes (eg. buying a copy of Sins and REing and using the game engine in a new game of your creation). This is why so much software is licensed instead of sold. A user doesn't "own" a copy of a "licensed" software, so they can legally be prohibited from doing something like that.

Wrong, libraries don't need author/publisher authorization to lend books.

COPYRIGHT, people.

I looked it up.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/108.html

I should really stay out of this,...

But so much hate in this thread.

Now I don't pirate. Honestly to lazy to find the sites, and to worried about the legal ramifications to do it even if I did. Unlike alot of people I am well aware of the electronic trail you leave when you use the internet. and that will always bite you in the ass eventually. To be honest I can't wait to see how the "Hurt Locker" lawsuits fall out.

But I cannot really support either side here.

If this site whatever it was didn't take steps to even pretend to stop piracy or limit it's assistance in it then yeah it needed to go down. I mean for christ's sake they alegedlly didn't even try. And such lack of social obligation in a business is inexcusable. Especially when we as a society attack them for the same reason.

But as for the draconian veiw some of the people who are defending IP protection. It comes down to an old addage

Is it better to punish an innocent man or let 100 guilty men go free.

In essence it comes down to the heart of the matter.And one has to ask themselves where they stand on that issue.

Now myself personally I tend to fall into the former when it come to heinous crimes like rape and murder. And I say that now with the conviction of thinking half the problem in this world is because we have as a species become to soft on crime. This by defualt transfers to lesser crimes as piracy

Unfortunately when I am honest with myself I cannot say for sure if I was that 1 man whether my conviction would hold true when facing that punishment.

And while I am sure my rights are trampled on every day by some business or government or agency or person. They have yet to do it in a way that truly affects my Day to Day. But I garuntee the day one of them does for something as nebulous as thier bottom line. It will probably be my last day on this planet and while I may go out with a relative whimper to society as a whole. The people who have trampled on what I consider my rights will know I was there and my impact on their life will not be a whimper and it will be bought and sold in blood.

And the industry as a whole should take pause. The cavelier way they say even if it impacts the innocent users the illegal act must be stopped at that price. While it may make some sense, alot of people see the lack of societal obligation in corporations as the same as the piracy they are railing against. And when they weild that brush that it is okay to trample on the innocents to get to the guilty yet decry that they are getting trampled on by society in the same fashion it does take alot of sympathy from us fence straddlers away.

And on a personal note: Jafo while I laud you dedication to your chossen profession and you freinds and family. Being in the industry must really show you more than us the loss inflicted by such callous behavior. And I haven't had this much respect for a company ever, but after joining in at beta 1Z I have been amazed with Stardock's communication and respect to their community.

I personally found alot of your replies to posts that I thought were valid (if misinformed and under the wrong impression) to be over the top offensive and provocative. Again while I understand where you are coming from and how your chosen proffesion has colored your judgement. And I would have no problem if it had been posted under a private name as an unrelated worker in the proffesion. The fact that you represent Stardock as seen by your handle makes me have to re-evaluate my position on this company as a whole. I just cannot condone theat kind of malice torwards a customer.

Fortunately the good that I have seen from Froggy and Boogie and the fact that I agree with alot of froggie's positions as a whole outweigh what I have seen here. But as a customer servive repersentitive (And you became just that when you posted under a stardock ID) you have a duty to remain above the malice. I speak from experience as a Waiter/Bartender for 15 years of my life. I have seen bad behavior and disgusting attitudes from my "Guests" in every concievable way. An employee must unfortunatly and unfairly have a thicker skin. And if I was new to these forums or had not had such a good experience in my time here. Stardock would have just lost a customer forever.

I welcome, encourage, and even desire the robust communication from the staff that I have seen in these forums and truly beleive it sets them apart from their competitors. I rarely DD but when I do from here on out I will look to impulse first for it. And I beleive that as Devs and Staff you should be encouraged to participate. But that needs to be tempered with the wisdom to understand that staff need to be more careful as the staff will be help under a tighter scrutiny.

Yes...it is all about how warez use/promotion/distribution is dealt with after the fact.

If a site actively ignores the issue and allows it to continue then they MUST be seen to be culpable.

That site obviously didn't shift their arses enough/fast enough and the shit hit the fan.

With Stardock's sites and their collective forums we simply [quietly] remove the people, often prohibiting their return [via IP Ban].

It's simple zero tolerance.

Respectable sites elsewhere do the exact same thing....