P2P legislation is smart next step in piracy education

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Honesty not intelligence

"One of the things that has always bothered me about the Recording Industry Association of America and its file-sharing lawsuits is that, for many of those people, their biggest crime is being uninformed."
One of the things that has always bothered me about ZDNET and its file-sharing posts: the author's biggest crime is being ingratiating beyond the point of insulting readers' intelligence.

"I can?t tell you many of my own friends and extended family members - educated, law-abiding citizens - who had no idea that they were sharing music illegally."
Puh-lease. Even if you are uneducated and stupid you know what you are doing is wrong. Do you think they would click OK here?
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/informed-p2p-user-act-to-clamp-down-on-filesharing-software.ars

"Yes, most of them wonder how it?s OK to download music for free."
One microsecond before the thought of stealing crosses their mind and before their conscience kicks in (or not, it seems, for your acquaintances).

"but very few understood that their crime wasn?t so much downloading music that wasn?t theirs but rather allowing other people to tap into their copies of the downloaded music - and make yet another copy."
Ignorance of the precise framing of copyright law and the operation of bittorrent is your pathetic defence to the intuitively obvious right/wrong? Best plan regular visits to your friends in jail then.

"The bill also prohibits P2P software from being sneaky with secretive installs or blocking uninstalls."
My guess is that pimps, drug dealers, bank robbers, arms traffickers and other such villains are also prohibited from sneaking about in secret. Just a guess.

"As welcome as legislation is"
Complete waste of time and money.

"If those in the entertainment industry - whether music or video - want to ever have an impact on piracy, they need to keep up the fight through education."
No, it's time to stop fighting: like you they need to be honest about their greed and come to the negociating table prepared to construct an eco-friendly new business model. Here's my list of 'criminals':

1. Consumer: stealing via file sharing.

2. ZDNET publisher: siding with readers using feeble rationalisations; viral marketing of crack teams splash screens, OEM software piracy techniques ... even admitting downloading videos! All to grab a few more page hits.

3. ISP: refusing to cooperate in consumer piracy control to protect revenue streams generated by widespread unlawful activites.

4. Media giant: failing to pass on cost savings from digitisation and the Internet.

5. Legal profession: leeching money from all sides without adding value.

6. Government: wasting money and failing to control neither the increasing power of global corporations, nor the consumer darknet.

When everyone comes to the table prepared to admit their dishonesty and compromise then society might progress in a decent direction. Or we can all go on protecting our own corner and trying to put the blame elsewhere.

Posted by: johnfenjackson@...   Posted on: 10/02/09  (Edited: 10/02/2009 @ 03:03) You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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