can you hack the disabled status from some user to create an embed?? I for one care not about such trivial issues such as copyright laws or legalities......

BOO cant watch the epp due to the universe of region restriction. who knew copyright law would be the catalyst that killed the internet-has-no-borders paradigm.

Fuckers.

Fahad,

I understand the benefits of reciprocal anti-tariff agreements. If that was all the WTO did it would be fine. But the WTO goes far beyond that in imposing regulations on member countries, and these, for example, both usurp the role of the FDA and make countries adopt draconian copyright law.

It uses the threat of economic loss from tariffs as leverage to coerce countries into joining and adopting all sorts of unrelated measures (analogous to the IMF's loan "conditionalities" that require privatization of everything regardless of the will of the people)

"In many ways, the movement against scientology is the same type of beast as a religious cult, with the vegetoid masses signing up to feel part of something noble and larger than life."

"I hold the same disgust toward scientology as I do toward judeo-christianity, which has delivered us the most violent century in ALL of human history, the 20th."

"So who do we blame for all of this? Well let's start with all of those organisations preaching religious tolerance. ... Think about if *your* religion would survive"

Yes, everyone is to blame. Everyone should die and join a suicide pact. Ok, I get it.

How about a pragmatic take on the recent Scientology events? Scientology much like MPAA and RIAA abuses copyright laws to bully people on the internet and sue and very litigious over clearly fair use. Therefore people are pissed off, especially culture warriors and the internets meme generators.

How about the fact that Scientology is a financial scam which pretends to be a "faith" in order for tax-free status and the exemption of "donations" for course fees. Forget the financial milking of their followers, it serves them right, but what about the tax-scam?

Who was the only group to infiltrate the US gov't including the IRS and DOJ? Was it Russia? Was it islamo-fascists? Nope, it was Scienologists and 11 of them (including Hubbard's wife) were convicted and sent to federal prison.

Scientology as acquired a massive portfolio of real estate all because of the tax shelters and loophole provided to them as a "Church" and "religion". How did they achieve such status? Seriously ask yourself that and do some research. Could YOU write a sci-fi slash religious text and get a group of 20 of your followers tax-free church status?

Also, why is it that a Jewish family that send their kids to a private school or religious camp cannot deduct those expenses, whereas scientologist can claim ALL of their course work, in the $100,000 in some cases, as donations? Why are these super rich Hollywood types allowed to pump all of this money tax free into this corporation.

If you still fail to see Scientology as a corporation, then ask yourself this, (aside from CBN) how many other religions have infomercials, amazon book stores, and also re-release all of their books and CDs every four years like it is a Star Wars franchise?

Does the Catholic church sell newly remastered and digitally restored DVDs? Seriously?

LOL, the copyright law "is a rather large sword". Ouch.

I'm not getting involved in this argument, but I would say that SciAm probably has a strong case against the copy/pasted website for copyright infringement. Without permission, posting this volume of excerpts from a subscription-only copyrighted publication with only two one-sentence contributions (which are just summaries) is a plain violation of copyright law, by my understanding.

Anyway, safe tip for posting articles to Sift Talk. Post a link to the article with any comments you have about it. If you need to quote a bit of the article, block-quote it and respond or comment on it. If it looks interesting, people will click to the article. No messy arguments.

Right, I have close relatives that is working in the entertainment industry here in Thailand, some of my friends are in both popular indie/major label bands, and I myself have been involved in producing some independant records. And let me tell you.

Piracy is a pain in the ass.

Spoco2's spot on on this issue. The problem is, many people on VideoSift use BitTorrent to download films/songs to see/hear what they're like before actually going out to buy them. Fine, that's great, but Sifters are normally great in general. But as you have probably come to know, Sifters don't exactly think act like the majority of the public, do we? The majority of people download pirated movies and songs simply for the fact that they don't want to pay for it. That is stealing. That is no different than shoplifting. You don't understand the feeling you get when you're out at your booth selling your CDs to a group of "fans" only for one to buy 1 copy of the CD and turning around to others in a kind of wink and telling their friends, right in front of my face, that "don't buy one...one copy is enough...you get what I mean". Oh yeah, like I don't know what they were going to do with it.

Not to mention the times where a fan would walk up to my friend holding out a CD for him to sign...except it was on a generic CD-RW disc.

And it happens everytime, everyday.

Hey, I'm not saying copyright laws aren't archaic and anarchist. I'm not saying it comes from an old distribution model. There are loopholes and a lot of very good points have been made here on this thread, as always, and I relish reading them. But the main thing is, a majority of people are pirating
simply because they don't want to buy the real copy, and it destroys the creative juice out of so many artists. I am willing to bet that even if a final, new distribution model is accomodated for the internet, most people will still continue to hack. Just think about it: "Download movie from the net for $4.99? Or download for free? Hmm..."

It's not a hard choice, you're going to get the same package no matter if you pay it or not, and people will continue to pirate no matter what innovative business model is thrusted upon them as most people will only think of themselves, not the artists. And it was always the job of corporations to think up business models in the first place, not artists. Why else would artists sign for them and make them what they are now? So, don't expect a "better" model to support artists directly and bypass the evil you all hate any time soon.

Remember, we're talking about the majority of people here, not Sifters. We're not talking about fans of Radiohead, who scarificed oh so much potential profit but can only be successful in doing what they did with the huge amount of fanbase they already have, we're talking more like fans of Britney Spears.

Before I end my tirade, just let me underline what I'm talking about here. Forget plagiarism. Forget the sharing with friends/families. I'm talking about the act of downloading films, products, for personal entertainment without the intention of actually buying the damn thing at all. And this is what most of pirating is. Don't justify it.

And so many people act.all.so.decent.and.proud.like.they.are.the.righteous.ones.for.doing.it.


Rant over. Thank you, and good night.

I skimmed the whole thread, so I may have missed it if someone did mention this. But it seems to me the most salient factor is what a person does with the file after they have downloaded or ripped it. Compare the following two scenarios:

1. You have a netflix subscription, and rip every dvd you get so you can watch it at your leisure. You delete the files after watching them (so your hd doesn't explode).
   
   
2. You shelled out $25 to buy a movie, then lend it around to all of your friends to watch. (Or maybe just invite several dozen friends over to watch it in your home theater.)

#1 is definitely illegal, and #2 is not. But #1 causes no financial harm, while #2 does. Copyright laws are anachronistic.

The funniest is Disney. They take a property that has entered public domain, develop an animated film around it and suddenly copying Snow White is violating some copyright law.

stealing purses, cars, tvs, etc. has NOTHING to do with downloading films. The first pertains to property law, the second to (outdated) copyright law. Someone needs to tell these naive anti-piracy activists that Hollywood itself was based on the piracy of other people's material. http://thepiratesdilemma.com/about-the-book

Farhad,

I would recommend editting this to only be three good paragraphs or so. By posting the whole document, you are violating fair use copyright laws. Just link to source document and give your executive summary.

Awesome. This is a brilliant bit of commentary on Disney and Copyright laws. Another bit of delicious irony is that the film was made entirely on Disney equipment. (The film-maker was an employee at the time)

The music at 2:19 blows my mind. The combination of 'Part of Your World' with the Bartok-ish strings and that creepy walking bass line is pretty striking, and the double meaning of the lyrics in this context is perfect.

"I just don't see how a world that makes such a wonderful things could be bad."

Try going to the actual youtube link then, sometimes youtube does that. It's hosted by the record label though, so it's not going to get pulled for copyright laws lol.

edit: section bolded so people are more likely to read it.

Thanks a lot, bamdrew! It's an interesting topic for me, glad we can discuss.

In reply to this comment by bamdrew:
Ahoy! I added a comment towards your request. Good-day!

In reply to this comment by lertad:
I'm not too familiar with the copyright laws he mentioned in this video. Could someone enlgihten me please?

Thanks for the link and additional info, bamdrew. Copyright laws in my country are so vague they might as well not exist, but I'm interested in learning more about what other countries are doing...

So, what about music "sampling"? I see a lot of this in hip-hop, some to good effect and some bad, but are there copyright laws covering it? Would this have to adhere to the same guidelines as artists covering old songs?