How do you get your movies?
Sharing is good, yes. But sharing is when you pick something that's yours, and give it to someone else. When you pick what is not yours, and use it/give it to someone else/sell it, you are "stealing".
You can play around with the words, but the truth remains the same.
Also, as stated here https://trisquel.info/en/forum/can-someone-give-me-compelling-case-why-i-should-use-only-free-software#comment-39211
Piracy prevents creation of new things. GNU exists because Stallman (and others, not just him!) didn't stole UNIX from At&T, they created something new, GNU.
There is one thing I beleive is making you talk past the others disagreeing with you about this issue. When you frame it like that, you are regarding something that doesn't have a physical form per se (culture and all it's expressions) as something that can actually be stolen. When you make a business of recording a cultural expression into a convenient physical form so you can deliver it, and you steal that form of delivery, that is one thing. When you find an alternative to that delivery system to access the cultural expression itself, the problem is not stealing something, it's just that the middle man changed.
You are disregarding some facts that people already linked here when they show that recent movies are still selling tickets, that the majority of people who share music learn to love music and still buy them and, more importantly, go to concerts (who generate more money for artists then records themselves for the large majority of small artists, which I know a few and can confirm this). So this is not about making artists poor and ruining families, you can know this looking around and seeing that artists are still able to produce cultural expressions and sometimes make a living out of it. Record companies and studios are still functioning and producing. It hurts the profits, not the production per se.
When you frame this as a criminal act, you are taking a position along with those who want to continue a business model that is out of date with how people are actually sharing culture today. It's actually a good thing that record companies and producers are no longer capable of enforcing an artificial scarcity of cultural expressions so they can profit on it. The free software movement is also about fighting a form of artificial scarcity.
This kind of business model transition, with all the conflict, is actually common in history. Hollywood itself was born when some people were trying to escape an enforcement of artificial scarcity on the technology used to make color motion pictures:
https://www.apertus.org/independent-filmmaking-history-article
All I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of grey areas on this issue, and claiming it's only a criminal act is framing a very small part of it.
Hello.
I agree with you that there are many grey areas. And I agree that laws should change (Public Domain for example, companies try to extend copyrights for too long, so works don't get into Public Domain). But, I think that if we want a better system, we should work towards that new system. Merely pirating the newest blockbusters serves no purpose. Truth is, most people don't care about sharing information, or about sharing at all. That's not their motivation. Their motivation is not having to pay to watch some movie that is in the theaters. And that is a weak motivation that leads to a weak society.
If it is true that we should share (and we should!) why do people disagree with me when I say that we should share what is our own creation? For example, I created a thread to share (as in share knowledge) websites that are filled with content created by their own communities. That's the same spirit behind free software (write your own software and share it with everyone else). That's the kind of world I want to live in.
People try to show me numbers that say "we can pirate at will, movies are still making money". But that's not even the point. People don't care about the money or the movie industry. People just care about themselves. That's not the world I want to live in. And I will try to spread what I believe to be right, just as RMS does (and people call him crazy, so they can call me crazy too, I don't care).
If the problem is that people want to share movies, why do they pick the ones that are copyrighted instead of choosing to share (and support) CC movies? There are people (lots of them) who want to work that new system you guys talk about. Making a movie, and allowing people to share them. The financial support comes from donations and kickstarters. Why can't you see that everytime you illegaly share a hollywood movie, you actually take away people attention from these independent movie makers?
Now think as if it were you...
If you wrote a book, and expected to get some money from it, maybe even start a series of books, something similar to harry potter who knows, and make a living out of writing those books. You spend time away from your family and friends, you give it your time and energy and imagination.... You sell your first book and you feel so proud! You believe it will be the start of a new life for you and your family. But the next day you discover that people are "sharing" your book in the internet without paying you a cent! All your time and energy and hard work... And you now are not getting anything. What do you feel? What do you think? Please, don't tell me it's right. And if it is not right, it won't suddenly become right because we are talking about rich authors who already made a fortune. A right principle will always be right. A wrong principle will always be wrong.
Honestly, if people would "share" old movies that were almost entered into public domain before the laws changed and extended.... I could maybe understand. They were stating to the government that they didn't approve of that new law, they wanted to share the cultural gifts that old movies can give us, and they were not hurting anyone in the process. But people don't want that, they share only the newest blockbusters, to feed their own desires.
So.... I hope you understand. We should fight for change, but not for anarchy. BEcause it will bite us in the ass too one day.
On 24/07/13 08:20, gnuser wrote:
> But, I think that if we want a better system, we should work towards
> that new system. Merely pirating the newest blockbusters serves no
> purpose. Truth is, most people don't care about sharing information,
> or about sharing at all. That's not their motivation. Their
> motivation is not having to pay to watch some movie that is in the
> theaters. And that is a weak motivation that leads to a weak
> society.
>
> [...]
>
> If the problem is that people want to share movies, why do they pick
> the ones that are copyrighted instead of choosing to share (and
> support) CC movies? There are people (lots of them) who want to work
> that new system you guys talk about. Making a movie, and allowing
> people to share them. The financial support comes from donations and
> kickstarters. Why can't you see that everytime you illegaly share a
> hollywood movie, you actually take away people attention from these
> independent movie makers?
This I totally agree with. I really need to check out Libre.fm some
time. It would be great if more artists broadcasted their Bitcoin
addresses as well.
Andrew.
Thanks. It's good to see that so much time typing actually helped someone to get it. If what we want is to share, and if we dislike the current system of entertainment, then we should share and support those who think like us :)
Also, thanks for the link, I had never heard of Libre.fm, but thanks to you I visited and I am liking if pretty much so far!
You might also like http://freemusicarchive.org it has a nice collection and they are very respectful of both copyrights and independent musicians.
Would you mind adding Libre.fm to the thread that I started "Community driven content websites"? I already posted two times, don't want to seem like "bumping". But Libre.fm totally deserves a place there =)
You write:
Truth is, most people don't care about sharing information, or about sharing at all. That's not their motivation. Their motivation is not having to pay to watch some movie that is in the theaters.
That is *not* the "truth". All serious studies show a positive correlation between the amount of movies taken from the Internet and the money spent in movie theaters. Heck, the box office figures almost increase every year! Take the All Time Worldwide Box Office Grosses. The average year of a movie in the top-100 is 2006 (according to awk '{ sum += $NF } END { print sum / 100 }')! If you take the top-15, it is 2009!
You write:
You sell your first book and you feel so proud! You believe it will be the start of a new life for you and your family. But the next day you discover that people are "sharing" your book in the internet without paying you a cent! All your time and energy and hard work... And you now are not getting anything. What do you feel? What do you think? Please, don't tell me it's right.
It is right. Illegal (today) but right. People should be free to non-commercially share books. There exist ethical ways to raise money. As I explained in a previous post, a tax on Internet connections would be fine. Furthermore, setting up such a tax would be the occasion to discuss how the money should be distributed. Because, guess what, the world of writing is no different from other artistic fields: 0,1% of superstars (like J.K. Rowling) who make millions (J.K. Rowling is richer than the Queen Elizabeth II) and the less popular writers that do not make a living from their Art.
>It is right. Illegal (today) but right. People should be free to >non-commercially share books. There exist ethical ways to raise money. As I >explained in a previous post, a tax on Internet connections would be fine.
You are no one to decide such things. And clearly you are not thinking straight, because you suggest making EVERYONE whu used the internet pay for something that only some people would use. The internet is already expensive as it is, we don't neet more taxes, especially to pay for those who do piracy, instead of living in a more decent way. Yes, you consider unethical for people to use proprietary software, I consider it unethical (and even immoral) for people to do piracy (as in illegal sharing). I am not paying for that kind of people!! -.-'
Sharing is living a descent life! Good members of a community share. Bad members don't.
As for "paying for something that only some people would use", this is called solidarity. It is the way any tax works: you pay taxes for public schools even if you do not have children, you pay taxes for hospitals even if you are not sick, you pay taxes for public libraries even if you never enter one, etc.
This last example actually is interesting because it directly relates to our discussion. The public money that ends up in libraries can be said to be not properly spent because libraries largely are outdated. It would be cheaper and far more efficient to distribute the books over the Internet: no limit on the number of readers of a book, hence no need to pay for several physical copies, no need to have a physical location, a staff to administrate or clean it, no working hours, no need for the reader to spend time in transportation to go to the library, etc. And if libraries would do that (so that anybody can enjoy culture), why would that be restricted to literature? And why couldn't the people help the libraries and do the same? That basically is what we propose: a *legalization* of non-commercial sharing (against a tax if necessary).
Notice that, instead, we have laws that prohibits sharing + laws that makes us pay tax (on disks and so on) because people share anyway. In some sense, the law punishes twice people that respect it: they pay the tax even if they do not enjoy sharing.
EDIT: By the way, I do not consider "unethical the use of proprietary software". The user of such software is victim more than guilty. If she is aware of the injustice, it is however sad she does not value her freedoms more and refuse proprietary software. What I consider unethical is the "*development* of proprietary software".
I agree, as many people here, when you suggest positive actions to the question of producing and sharing content. This has a lot of value, but it doesn't address the fact that people want to participate on their own culture, even if it is a culture of blockbusters. Some people like pop culture/music, including famous artists, and this is not necessarily available in alterative forms of sharing. It's not helping your argument when you try to say what are people's intentions when they share a blockbuster because you don't really know (or you are not posting the source of your statement).
And, just as in the case of free software, I'm neither a musician nor a programmer. So I try to contribute in other ways when I want to share on what is produced by them.
Let me try to put it in clearer terms: when I talk about artificial scarcity, I'm trying to point to an unbalanced power relation. When I suggest that one of the goals of free software is to try to fight a form of artificial scarcity, it's because it's trying to give power back to users and try to make them notice giving away this power is bad in the first place.
You try to picture ruined families and broken artists because of sharing, but the facts on the ground are that power is still highly concentrated on the hands of those who make a business in distributing culture (the middle man), and thus money is also concentrated in their hands (as posted here by others). Artists are struggling to make a living for decades, way before the internet, not just recently or since Napster. The reason is that if they wanted to be famous they needed the abusive contracts that are still part of the industry (Editors/Producers/Recorders).
In your arguments you are failing to address this question of power inbalance, even when mentioned that the same industry that now claims damages on their profits (Hollywood) once was being choked by the same dynamic and tried to get away too.
(Edit: fixed typing errors)
The "truth" is that "theft" is defined, in all legislations of the world, as the "subtraction of someone's else property". When you use file sharing systems (for instance), nobody has anything subtracted. Copying is multiplying. The content industry wants us to believe that the multiplication is the subtraction! It also wants us to believe that sharing is the moral equivalent to attacking ships! That is just Newspeak to preserve their outdated business.
The "truth" is that what you are talking about is called "counterfeiting" (in the legislations) and has nothing to do with "theft".
(why does Trisquel sometimes deletes my comment instead of posting it??)
For the last time, words meanings CHANGE over time. "Piracy" is a term that for the last few years has been used to mention illegal sharing of intelectual/copyrighted property. I will keep using the term because it's accurate for the people of today, and would really like it if you stopped making comparisions between this and sea attacks.
As for the other comments, I can get any studies I want and you can get any studies you want, we both know that studies are many times manipulated to suit the person who paid for them. The truth is that people don't really care about sharing they only care about watching the latest blockbuster without paying. That is a weak motivation and leads to a weak society. People who do piracy don't care about supporting artists anyway, they don't fight to change laws, they just disobey the law as much as possible because it's technicaly possible. People who do piracy don't care about the license that says "don't share me". That's wrong, right? That's why we have free software, because we want free software with free license.
Want to prove me wrong?
If you care about sharing, you will want to share things that were created to be shared in the first place.
If you care about sharing, you will want to share things with a free "shareable" license.
If you care about freedom, you will want to have musics that can be remixed and used commercially.
If you care about supporting the artists and not the companies, instead of pirating movies and musics (you are supporting no one that way) you can go and share and promote and support independent artists, share their stuff and make donations. That way you are helping artists. Pirating you are only feeding your own desire.
RMS didn't pirated UNIX even if he was technically capable of doing it. He created a new system and a new license. Now some people (maybe even RMS himself, I don't know and don't particularly care) want to restrict that to software. They want to say "I only use free software, I am ethical, but I won't stop pirating movies and musics". I say NO! We must go a step further and live the free culture at all levels. My moto is "Using free software to watch free movies". And that's what I believe to be right.
As you wrote yourself, words convey a meaning. "Piracy" is connoted pejoratively. It should not be used to describe a good thing such as sharing. Sharing is good for the society as a whole but it is, as well, good for artists. We gave you links to studies that prove our point. If you want one more, here is a whole book under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. The French economist Philippe Aigrain wrote it and I read the French version. You pretend you "can get any studies" that would prove your point. Help yourself!
Very good suggestion! I know of a few artists that use this new business model effectively, including many webcomic creators who retain the rights on their work, publish the content for free on the internet, and print books (usually with everything already published freely + bonus) as a source of income. I know a few music bands who basically do the same, distributing songs online and/or selling home made CDs at concerts very cheap, the concerts themselves making the money.
I applaud those artists and I think we should promote and support them. People who make content available for a larger number of people than just "those who can pay" are the people who will build a better future.
So, I believe you will agree with me that we should share those artists musics instead of the ones who DON'T want their music shared that way.... right?
Like I have said, the one who creates is the one who sets the rules.
What I say is that pirating (illegaly sharing) something that has a "no share" license is wrong because we are not respecting the choice of the person who created it in the first place. If we want to share, we should share things that have a "share me" license. Like those artists you mention, we should share and promote them. Truth is when we pirate (illegaly share) a movie that has a "no share license" we are taking away the attention that could be pointed towards CC movies, students movies, amateur movies... What I say is not that "sharing is bad", what I say is "sharing is good when you share what is supposed to be shared". Anything else is ENFORCING and not ENCOURAGING. If a person uses a "no share" license, it's wrong that we force him to do so. Don't like the license? Don't listen to his music, don't buy his CD, don't go to his concert! He will eventually learn the lesson. But when you pirate you actually say "I like what you do, please produce more, and in time DRM will stop me from copying your CD".
GOT IT? I am not against sharing, I just don't like to have people saying they are "sharing" what as a "don't share me" license attached to it. Even less when it's a website full of ads (someone is not sharing but making profit out of other people's work).
Promoting artists doing the right thing (authorizing the redistribution of their works) is good. Having the wrong thing (prohibiting sharing) banned by law would be even better. To do so, disobeying the "dirty" licenses may be the way to go. See one of my previous post.
> What I say is that pirating (illegaly sharing) something that has a "no share" license is wrong because we are not respecting the choice of the person who created it in the first place.
I understand very well how you're thinking, but you make a false assumption.
First, you think every artist makes his choice. The truth is: big media companies make this choice and the artists have to obey. Beside of a few exception (real superstars) the artists don't benefit from the sell of cds due to the immoral contracts with the label company.
The artist make money for example with concerts; the more people know about them, the more money they get with their concerts.
Their popularity would spread much more if only the label company allows people to share. More copies = increasing popularity = cash (I'm talking about the artist, not about the big bosses).
People don't pay for the cds? Well, this wouldn't benefit the artists anyway.
Now a small comparison in order to show you another problem with your argument:
Think of a console for video games (wii, xbox, whatever).
Some people buy them and install software which frees the device;
the developer of the machine don't want people to do this.
They made a choice: people should use the device only for playing normal games.
The question is:
is every choice of every producer legitimate? Of course you can say: well, the developer made this choice; if I don't want to obey, I don't buy it.
But: has the developer the right to dictate what I should be able to do in my room with the device I bought for cash?
My answer is clearly no.
Perhaps some day it becomes everyday business to send a little picture of me and my fingerprint to the author of book in order to read it.
Should I say: "well, bye bye books, the author made this decision" ?
No! I would say: shit, this is too much, I will not do it and read anyway.
There resides the problem, you believe that "sharing" is good not matter what you are "sharing". But, if you are "sharing" something that has a license that says "You are forbid to share me", you are not "sharing", you are "illegaly sharing" which is no sharing at all, it's a break of the law, and it's a break of trust between you and the copyright holder, it's a dishonor to you yourself, it's an attack on copyright and by extension on GPL and Creative Commons, it's a BAD thing that will make a BAD world. Want laws to change? Fight for change instead of merely disobeying the law. That way law will never change, they will just fight you more and more.
Want to "share"? Again, share your own creations, share content that has a license pro sharing, share Public Domain, but don't call "piracy", which conveys the right meaning because it is wrong, as "sharing", which is a good thing and in order to empower people to do so, GPL and CC (and others like BSD even if FSF won't accept that) were created.
Really, you are a teacher, is it so hard to understand this? If the license says "dont' share" you are not sharing, you are "pirating". And if you want to "share", share things that have a license saying "share me". Also, reject the things with the bad license so they will stop existing. While you use them, one way or another, you are making the bad license keep existing.
This is the main assumption for Free Culture.
Once a work has been released, an artist shouldn't be able to control their work's redistribution, as that is effectively control over other people.
(Correct me if I'm wrong)
I have not read a lot of that website, but I will tell you this: Free/open movements have been poisoned by piracy ideas. So, we can't really trust everything that has a "free" badge on it's jacket.
Having said that, and as you can read above, I believe that if people can find a system that suits them well to share their creations and they feel confortable doing that, we should applaud, promote, support and admire those people. And of course, share their content (books, musics, etc). But we should encourage people to follow that path not ENFORCE and PRESSURE them to do so. We should say "if you don't use a free license I will not read your book" or "if you don't use a free license I won't listen to your music nor go to your concert". We shouldn't say "if you don't use a free license I will still listen to your music until I buy Apple, they will eventually create DRM strong enough to stop me".
Does it makes any sense?
I will even throw something more to the fire: To the people who say they are not "pirating" they are just "sharing", how concerned are you about sharing with those who are less fortunate than you? How much would you sacrifice to help others have "culture" (as if hollywood blockbusters is culture)?
Let's say a license of a music says "you can share this for free with anyone in any medium. but for each person you give it to, you have to give the producer 10 bucks. the person who receives the music will receive it for free and he will too be able to share it with other person, but he will still have the same rule."
Would you follow it? Notice that there is no prohibition of sharing. It just comes with a cost for the person who wants to share. Not the person who receives. Would you do it? Are you so seriously concerned about "sharing culture" that you would PAY to share it? You can argument whatever you want, and you will probably say that "I am not free if I have a condition to obey" but the truth is that I am giving you an alternative that would make people able to download for free on the internet anything they wanted without breaking the law and the license. It would be the one sharing supporting the costs. Would you do that?
Most people, no they wouldn't. They only share because it costs them NOTHING! If it had a cost, there wouldn't be even half piracy as we have it nowadays.
ssdclickofdeath, I was not targeting you personally, but it all came to my mind while replying to your comment. Don't take it as a personal assault =) In the first paragraph I explained the problem with current "free culture". Second paragraph was an explanation on "sharing". Everything else was for everyone to read and think about it. =) thanks.
I confirm: sharing is good no matter what.
If the law prohibits sharing, then the law is bad. It must be changed. To do so, the people must sometimes do the right thing and disobey the wrong law. Would you say the Montgomery Bus Boycott should not have happened?
To some extent, I do the same with my publications. Almost all editors make scientists sign documents stating that the editor becomes the sole copyright holder of what the scientists wrote (otherwise the article is not published). This is wrong. Those articles should be free to redistribute. Especially when written by public servants like me. Otherwise the people pays twice: for the salary of the scientists and to access their results.
That is why I disobey those copyright forms and let anybody download my articles from my website. Many scientists do that. This is good. Thanks to that, the editors do not sue anyone! At some point, they rethink their outdated business models. Several of them start proposing "open access journals". However, most of the time, they demand far too much money (universities do not have enough) to have the article published in such a journal. Eventually, we hope to have laws that will state that scientific publications (or, better: anything!) must be freely sharable in a noncommercial way. It is going well. In France for instance, there is HAL. Would that be the case if all scientists would respect the copyright forms they sign? I strongly doubt.
The software I develop is, of course, under a free software license (the GNU GPLv3).
Replying to this comment: Your first link is broken by the forum software. (Not replying directly so you can still edit your post.)
I do not buy encrypted DVDs or any other product that uses DRM.
My TV tuner is compatible with free software, I use that with Kaffeine.
I also support the Lib-Ray format (http://lib-ray.org/) and support the Morevna Project (http://morevnaproject.org/).
I do not buy encrypted DVDs or anything that uses DRM. Recently I started supporting Blender films such as Big Buck Bunny, Sintel, Morevna and Lunatics.
Usually watch history, science, health, and technology documentaries, but the old television archives are okay.
Archive's Moving Images library - over 1 million free digital movies, films, and videos. Many are free to download.
http://archive.org/details/movies
Love Shift - films about social change projects from around the world.
http://www.loveshift.com/
Top Documentary Films - database of movies about life, history, and culture.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/watch-online/
For new movies, I stream them online. After all, the internet connection has already beem paid in full! :)
Dude... you have over 1 million movies in the Internet Archive (from old silent comedies to animated movies in 4k like Sintel) and you need to watch pirate movies? -.- you don't know what you are missing, you should spend more time at the Archive, you would probably find things in there that you won't find anywhere else ;)
Anyway, thanks for the links, loveshift seems to be very good.
I used a LOT of the suggestions in this thread to help change the way I get movies and television shows to watch at home. Not wanting to use proprietary software anymore and especially not Netflix, I had to find better sources. Since the end result of my search has been pretty conclusive, I wrote an article about home theater for my website: http://webspace.webring.com/people/me/ericxdu/Pages/homent.html
I'm considering using some of the info to add to the Trisquel wiki. I'm not sure how useful it would be in that context, though.
Thanks for the link ! I didn't know http://topdocumentaryfilms.com
They list some very interesting sounding documentaries.
Personally I think your text could fit the Trisquel wiki although it is not directly Trisquel related.
Computerized Home Entertainment is a well-written article , EricxDu! Thank you for sharing it with us, and definitely add it to the wiki so others can enjoy and learn. Freedom is a subject on everyone's mind!
If you know any promising indie musicians, they can get their CDs burned by Disc Makers or Oasis and keep all the profit for themselves. Some old musicians privately fund young talent, and keep them away from the nastiness of the entertainment world. Thankfully, very few young artists are starving! :-)