Because we broke our backs earning those rights and privileges. There's nothing wrong with people immigrating as long as it is done legally and at there own cost. Earn your way like everybody else not with your hands out and your palms up.

Oh, good...let's redefine nice and narrowly...exactly what crime against property actually means, shall we?

Make sure to exclude pertinent sections of the act....just so the point is clear.

Like I said....bugger the minorities and 'unemployed/homeless' [they probably don't/won't vote] make sure the police only look after the rich and white. [let's be generous....make that and/or white]......

Society wants protection.  Unconditional protection.

Not priorities determined by some faction.... ANY faction.

Any minute now there's going to be some rant that the cost of police rescues, etc should be borne by the rescuee.... maybe Police can charge a finder's fee for recovered stolen property...now that'd be fun.....quaint incentives there.

Fuck it...cancel all sporting events.  Police resources are 'wasted' on them too.

Let's dispense with all road traffic legislation..... that'll get the cops off the highways.

Not enough of a solution?

OK....shoot every second person [civilian] in the country....then there will be twice the cops per capita.

Brilliant.

 

Or...

Employ more Police......now there's a trick.

I didn't really want to be debating this any further, but it seems that you have gone off the rails a little here.  Yes, it's a highly emotive subject for you... copyrights, but to suggest removing traffic legislation and traffic police... well that is going from the sublime to the ridiculous.  Therefore a reply seems necessary....

This was not my definition, by the way.... it is what is written in criminal law.  The police and criminal courts do NOT deal with personal property disputes UNLESS there has been a physical act of stealing, as defined in the criminal statutes.  Copyright infringement does not appear in those statutes... that is defined as a civil matter and appears in civil law statutes.

Now that would be the go... if the powers that be saw fit to do so... instead of penny pinching and just looking out for their own arses.

In the meantime, however, as much as you want to protect intellectual property/copyrights, we have to make do with what we have, and those police resources NEED to be on the ground to protect and serve society from actual harm....  However, this does not mean I concede to extending police and criminal court powers to include civil matters.  It sets too dangerous a precedent... you know, because of capitalism... powerful corporations flushing lawmakers palms with cash... the haves with easy access to legal representation... the have nots with none.

oh, and that includes cops on our streets and highways, sporting events... eg, road rage is a crime because it endangers public safety, as does drink driving.  Riots, etc can occur at sports events and public safety is compromised.. thus a police presence is required.  

I've never heard of a copyright infringement being a public safety issue, nor a personal safety one, either.... that's why police do not pursue such matters. 

 

No you didn't, you just got born in a rich country. If you think that little office work you do is back breaking you're a moron.

The rules of the site are clear: NO ATTACKS OF A PERSONAL NATURE WILL BE TOLERATED. Please edit your comment.

If that were the case Doc they'd have to edit the OP for lying as well. This statement:

"This guy basically claimed that it is his *CONSTITUTIONAL* right to steal intellectual property from game developers."

is a bold faced Lie. He points to my thread, https://forums.elementalgame.com/386513 , and says that I say I should have the "right" to steal intellectual property? Did I say anywhere in my OP in the other thread I should have the right to download something? Um, No. (If he's not talking about me, but one of the replies in my thread, it would be nice if he would have said so, but he didn't) All someone has to do is read my OP in the other thread to see that all I do is talk about sites being closed down and what certain law firms are doing and what the government is doing. NO-WHERE do I talk about people having the right to download things. Not Anywhere in my OP in the other thread nor in any of my replies. This would lead me to think the OP here didn't read my post At All. But hey, that's ok. It's ok to say someone said something when they didn't, right? Sure it is, I mean...obviously it must be. *rolls eyes*

This thread never should have been started to begin with. It should have been merged with the other to prevent spam. What do I know though?!?! I only moderated forums professionally for 5 or 6 years for multiple companies including one that at the time was the worlds most popular MMO. You think the WoW forums are bad? RofL....obviously people seem to have forgotten what the official OSI UO forums were like back in their day. I flat out Deleted at least 50 threads a day that were either spam or throw off topics from other threads. Then again the Elemental forums are a hell of a lot slower then OSI's were back in the day and spamming isn't really an issue here I suppose. I can't say too much anyway as I'm just as guilty of being Spamy Mc'Spamerstien as well. It would be too much like the pot calling the kettle black.

Generally you don't see the spam because we are 'efficient'.

5 or 6 years is a good go....this'll be my tenth...;)

Anyone want some Nike shoes? .....;p

Pffft, No

Now if you'd like to cough up the dough for me to get my Harley Boots resoled that would be mighty nice of you

P.S. Did I miss some kind of joke with the "Nike" thing? Maybe it just went over my head (or below my knees lol)

One of the most common 'spam' threads will be some Asian site spamming 'knock-off' imitation Brand Name footwear...watches...whatever....

But you get all sorts.

I vaguely recall the shortest-lived spammer on these forums was/is about 7 minutes.

Joined....posted...exiled...post deleted.....forgotten.

Other 'fast departures' are usually of the abusive kind ....;)

It's not that it means nothing to me, Jafo -- it's that I can't help but live my life doing "what (the hypothetical) Jesus would do" -- sharing.  I don't create it to hold on to it, or own it -- I create it to share -- to give something to others for free, because I don't think there are enough free things in the world. 

As for submitting them to contests...THAT I do because there's a little masochist inside me, probably due to the control freak my mother was, that needs a grade to know "how I'm doing," -- it's a character flaw, I really wish I could change this need to be graded, like I'm incapable of knowing anything about my own quality on my own.

I wouldn't call that a character flaw.  Sometimes we all need to know that what we're doing has some value and/or merit, and coming first, second or third in a contest... even fifth or sixth, is an encouraging indicator that helps us to keep on trying.  So no, it's not just a need to be graded.

The referenced thread was a little hyperbolic, but there is a legitimate concern to be raised there.  What it looks like to me is the federal government assisting corporations in their enforcement, which just isn't a responsible use of constitutional power.

The piracy issue is more complicated than either the rightwing or copyleft extremes seem to realize.  It really is different from smashing a window and grabbing what's inside (i.e., VP Biden's remarks), but it's also different from sticking your cup in and drinking some water from the infinite river. 

Can you imagine if the RIAA, back in the 80s, sued people for $10,000 for distributing mix tapes?  In a sense, that's what's happening now, only on a much larger scale.  The Internet has enabled exchange of information on a scale that's never before been seen, and that has implications for both the expansion of human knowledge and...the business plans of multinational corporations.

I'm agnostic on this issue.  I know piracy is wrong, and I do it anyway.  I'm not a copyleftist who claims to have a right to games, movies, and mp3s.  I download the stuff because it's there, and I try to rationalize it (e.g., I've been burned many times at the games store, so I want a five-finger demo before I'll buy the game, and if I enjoy the game and forget to buy it, well, nobody's perfect).  But it's not the same as walking into a store and stealing a copy.  Regulation has to bear that in mind, because, when you consider the monetary penalties of a civil suit for mp3 downloads, they far outweigh those of pleading guilty to misdemeanor shoplifting!

Then there's that expansion of human knowledge.  All the countless educational books, mp3s, videos, even (too few) games, which can expand the knowledge of the downloader, in turn contributing to productivity and our economy.  I really think the government should sponsor projects like MIT's OpenCourseWare, only on a much broader scale.  Every textbook used by public universities should be free to download.  Every research group or technology corporation with government contracts should provide educational videos online for free.  Just imagine the expansion of human knowledge if we had researchers from Boeing, for example, teaching us how to use AutoCAD.  I'm sure there are concerns about giving up America's technological advantage, but that advantage is steadily waning already.  If a nation like India picks up on this, they will become the technological leaders of the next generation.

As for pirating games, though, yeah, it's wrong.  People are going to do it anyway.  That doesn't make it right.  But, there are still limits to what is acceptable in attempting to stop it.  And I think the government may be crossing the line on this.

EDIT:  Just a quick example.  Bill Gates had access to a state of the art computer lab and mentors as a kid.  That access enable him to become an expert and go on to become one of the richest/most successful developers in the world.  Today's kids get that same kind of access online.  Okay, they're doing it illegally; but the expertise are real.  When you have 13-year old kids learning $10,000 software packages, that's a profound development for the economy.

 

I'm not real stuck on what a grossly ignorant thread starter decides to use for wording, bothering with such trivialities is even more pointless than posting on this stuff to begin with.

 

 

Lets ignore all the technicalities.  They go both ways, they're a bunch of bullshit for the most part, they vary by country, etcetera.  Lets just assume that TPB is 95%(or higher, I don't give a red rats ass) illegal with no arguments in any direction over whether a particular file is really legal, or whether referencing an illegal file is legal, any of that nonsense.

 

Instead of the legality of it, because law is a construct and largely irrelevant to the reality of them, look at the effects.  Copyright owners like to argue that intellectual property should be equally inviolate as physical property, but you can't buy up all the land around an airport and wait for Uncle to expand it and ream them for ten times the property value.  They'll take it for less than you could actually sell it for typically.  The reason being, there are situations where property control can be devastating to the population.  You're not allowed to set your house on fire either, you could burn out your neighbors as well, property control is limited because it can be dangerous to individuals.

 

There are old movies and TV shows rotting away in a vault somewhere because their copyright owners are either too stupid or too greedy to take advantage of their asset.  There's really good shit out there you've never seen since it originally aired all because the man with the rights to it is a moron.  Billions in assets rot away every year as old flicks you'll never see degrade beyond use without ever having been transferred to a new medium.

 

Enterprise.  Voyager.  The killer B's whored out Trek for how many years?  Even DS9, a good show in it's own right.  Was that really Trek?  Do you know what would have happened to DS9 if the old man still owned his own copyrights?  We can go back further, Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  Bad Gene Roddenberry!  Since I'm an equal opportunity asshole, I'll pick on Star Wars too.  Well, that's not true, I'll pick on Star Wars because I want to cut his nuts off with a dull butter knife and bleed the asshole dry for the Crimes he perpetrated with his editing job on the remastered releases.  I could even forgive Jarjar with enough time, but softening Han Solo down to a wimpy little shit that waits for the bounty hunter to shoot first instead of blowing him away from under the table without warning?  The character made the series, and he goes and ruins it.

 

It goes further, there will never be another Alice In Wonderland.  That's not to say there wont be yet another rehash of Alice In Wonderland, because Alice In Wonderland predates the butchery and is one of the few things available to be rehashed.  The copyright on this wonderfully inventive, and frequently played upon work expired in 1907.  That expiration is why there are video games, movies, tv shows, plays, commercials, a nearly endless supply of alterations and extrapolations off that original work.  Star Trek will never go out of copyright, you have to get permission to use it and will in the future as long Uncle keeps extending them to keep works covered in perpetuity.  Roddenberry is already dead.  Star Wars will never go out of copyright either, although we at least get decent video games for this IP.  I only wish Lucas was dead, but it keeps me warm on cold nights so it's not a total loss.

 

A lot of people are one hit wonders of a sort.  They can pull off an idea once, but they can't keep it going.  Copyright kills their work as they suicide it into oblivion with fuck up after fuck up until you can't stand thinking about it.  Other people are just really stupid, and don't ever release their copyrighted work.  Then there are those wonderful monolithic corporations that run things into the ground in place of the original author, like Paramount did with Trek.

 

TPB isn't doing anything for the one aspect, the more damaging aspect unfortunately, but if places like that aren't shut down you'd have to worry a lot less about your favorite TV show dissappearing for the next thirty years because the producer doesn't like boxed sets or something.  It's irrefutable fact that piracy builds markets in developing countries as well. The entry barrier into the information age is vast if you actually pay for it all up front.  When you're getting all the software aspects off TPB, the hardware makes a lot more sense.  We'd be a few years back in tech without the developing world stealing all the software to use on the hardware they could barely afford in itself.

 

It's also built markets in not so developing countries too.  I don't know if the Japs have actually figured it out and will replace them as they wipe out their own market creation, but Manga and Anime would have a product viability of zero.  You're just not going to sell adult yanks a black and white comic they have to read backwards at a ten pages a buck.  It doesn't even matter whether the product is worth it or not, reaching the shelf wont happen in the first place without a few million people "stealing" them after they "stole" some anime subtitled by an enterprising pirate and thought "wow, saturday morning cartoons really suck!"  I don't quite follow the progression, since broadened my horizons when Hulu started rattling out shows, but Hulu wouldn't likely exist either, and it didn't ten years ago in any case. 

 

Copyright law has gone way past beneficial and into the lethal realm.  Is piracy any worse?  I keep waiting for some enterprising asshole to do a real study of their customer base to find out just how many of their actual paying customers are pirates first, but no one seems to want to know that detail.  This is particularly hilarious since they're so frequently doing that very activity, minus the "piracy" entry in the form.  I expect the reason is they're worried they'll find out the reverse is true.  Rationality rarely wins over the need for control since corporations are running the show instead of the actual content creators, they're managed by a population subset similar to politicians.  You're looking at a group that has natural and necessary predilections towards power acquisition, being driven by something else and becoming a Fortune 500 company just isn't likely.

And that's why I object so strongly to the movie and music industry moguls enlisting government and law enforcement to pursue file sharers, ec.  In terms of profit percentages, the actual creators see eff all from their creations while the fat cats rake in billions for doing eff all.  And we won't attribute them with providing the capital.... because that was either handed to them on a silver platter from the efforts of those gone before them, or it was stolen by virtue of not paying content creators what they're actually worth.

Personally, I'd like to have seen the music and movie moguls totally decimated by the recent global financial crisis... and I mean totally decimated beyond repair, that perhaps a new order rose out of the ashes and attempted to play fairly.  It won't happen, though, not while corporate greed is allowed to flourish unopposed.