This will be every bit as damaging as SOPA/PIPA. *Promote the awareness. This week ACTA gets one step closer to being signed into law by th EU.

http://www.stopacta.info/

you're right. He isnt Wesley Crusher, He is a young , very smart, opinionated, assertive, wunderkind. Who after graduating the acadamy, left with the traveler to see..... oh!! shit!!! im all confused now..
>> ^Sagemind:
Hold on, Don't let your Wesley Crusher hating stop you from realizing Wheaton actually has an informed opinion. You may dislike the characterization that has surrounded him as a character but in real life, he knows what he is talking about, he has strong opinions and asserts himself. If it's his ego that you dislike, fine, that's your issue. But over all, he is educated on the issues, sure about his opinions and stands firm in his statements, unlike a lot of the opinionists out there.

>> ^bmacs27:
Can you point to the specific passage you are referring to that suggests that there is an inverse correlation between dollars spent enforcing copyright, and profitability? (I assume that to be your assertion).

My basic assertions are two

1. Nobody has provided any evidence that shows an inverse correlation between "piracy" and profit for the industry.
   
2. Nobody has provided any evidence that shows an inverse correlation between number of "piracy" lawsuits and number of "pirates".
   

Furthermore, the opposite correlations have been shown to exist for at least the first case, and the second seems almost completely decoupled.

I am not asserting that the RI/MPAA does not waste their money alienating their customers. Only that when they do that they don't have an evidence based economic reason for doing so.

I object to the industries "common sense" observation that they "must" be losing money ( when they are making the same or better money than prevailing trends would project at less expense ) being taken as a given without the slightest concern for facts.

If you search for "Could the industry as a whole be gaining" that's near the beginning of the details I'm referring to. Lessig cuts them a lot of slack, but the basic facts he lays out don't conform to the industry narrative I am disputing.

Full disclosure: my annual purchasing of music and movies went from ~$100 to ~$500 the year I started file sharing, and then from ~$500 to $0 the year the MPAA served me with papers, and I stopped file sharing. I'm biased, but I have been following this whole thing very closely, and I know they made money off me sharing, and they lost money by stopping me.

>> ^luxury_pie:

The music is the Star Wars Theme I guess?


They use most of the music and a lot of the sounds of Star Wars. So this totally isn't SOPA approved...and with it's timing and execution I don't think it could've gone any better. Hard to watch at times it really just reminds me about how much I love Star Wars.

Okay, I downloaded it. Can you point to the specific passage you are referring to that suggests that there is an inverse correlation between dollars spent enforcing copyright, and profitability? (I assume that to be your assertion). Or even the passage you are citing as quantitative evidence that there is in fact a financial benefit to copyright holders from piracy?

Everything I've read so far agrees with most everything I've said.

>> ^dgandhi:

>> ^bmacs27:
@dgandhi
I can almost guarantee you that the copyrights that have had more spent on enforcement have been more profitable. Just as I can guarantee you that the ones that have been more profitable have probably also been more pirated. You only asked for a correlation man.
The fact is, no convincing evidence has been presented either way.

While nobody here has presented such evidence in this thread, I have claimed that I have seen it, and nobody has made a counter claim of facts , if you want the details of these facts, you can read/listen_to/search ( legally & for free ) Prof Lessig's creative commons licensed book on the issue : http://www.manybooks.net/titles/lessiglother04free_culture.html
I would like to see you debunk his work, or even back up your "almost guarantee" of correlation with facts instead of conjecture.

>> ^bmacs27:

@dgandhi
I can almost guarantee you that the copyrights that have had more spent on enforcement have been more profitable. Just as I can guarantee you that the ones that have been more profitable have probably also been more pirated. You only asked for a correlation man.
The fact is, no convincing evidence has been presented either way.


While nobody here has presented such evidence in this thread, I have claimed that I have seen it, and nobody has made a counter claim of facts , if you want the details of these facts, you can read/listen_to/search ( legally & for free ) Prof Lessig's creative commons licensed book on the issue : http://www.manybooks.net/titles/lessiglother04free_culture.html

I would like to see you debunk his work, or even back up your "almost guarantee" of correlation with facts instead of conjecture.

>> ^bmacs27:

I agree with both @heropsycho and @Psychologic .
People comfortable with online sharing often refuse to acknowledge the cost of content creation.


Losses to the content industries aren't really the point here. The question is, how far should we go to protect the privilege of monopoly on distribution rights granted to copyright holders? If the copyright system can be upheld without significantly damaging society, I see no problem with it. The current trend, to me, seems to be to introduce cures worse than the disease.

I work in film. Copyright holders pay my salary. I'd rather switch professions than support this kind of draconian legislation.

>> ^bmacs27:

What they're probably acting on is the positive correlation between dollars spent enforcing copyright, and profit per publication. Does that suffice for you?

I don't buy that either, the data on litigation shows that it cost more than it brings in.

If you could show that litigation produces less pirating, again the data a few years ago showed the inverse correlation, then you might have something, but I want to see the data.

The entire MP/RIAA PR campaign against "piracy" is based on their claim that they are loosing money, which has not only not been demonstrated, but in fact appears to be the opposite of what is happening.

Copyright has become a broken social convention, because the copyright conglomerates have sought to extend it indefinitely, and to use strong arm tactics and dishonesty to enforce their power grab.

I'm in favor of a sane copyright system, but if we don't have one I can't really blame anybody for ignoring it.

What they're probably acting on is the positive correlation between dollars spent enforcing copyright, and profit per publication. Does that suffice for you?

Arguing for statistics representative of counterfactuals like that is tricky. Presumably the dominant causal structure is something like:

profitable <---- good ----> pirated.

You'd somehow need to condition on quality, independent of both profitability and piracy in order to argue that pirating impacts profitability one way or the other. Both are plausible in my mind, via stolen sales competing with free exposure. My guess is that the industry has already done a much more nuanced and contextualized calculations with their data. The result was probably that piracy supports independent artists and small labels, but hurts the blockbuster sales. Instead, they probably should have been focusing on quality music, and the money would come all by itself.

>> ^dgandhi:

Until somebody can at least show an inverse correlation in ( profit/publication ):( files pirated )

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Wow, that is so ironic, given your name.>> ^billpayer:

Oh boo hoo, multi-millionare Bill Maher doesn't like the internet. What a shit bag. Fuck you dude. I will personally never pay for your shit.

>> ^Psychologic:

>> ^heropsycho:

And of course people are going to be less likely to buy something when they can get it for free.

Okay, I keep hearing this " big problem, people don't buy ". Can either of you back this up?

The facts the last time I checked were exactly the opposite, file sharing correlates with more purchasing. nobody is loosing money, they are just loosing control.

Until somebody can at least show an inverse correlation in ( profit/publication ):( files pirated ) I'm calling bullshit, the only problem with intellectual property in "western society" is that the public domain has been raided by infinite copyright terms.

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>> ^Psychologic:
The real problem isn't end users downloading free stuff, it's people making a living from selling unauthorized copyrighted material.


I don't understand this reasoning. If people are downloading free stuff, then who is buying pirated stuff? Surely the only people who are making a profit are the ISPs.