Lovely quote

[green_amber]

from A Nother mailing list trying desperately to think how to condemn the raid on TV LInks while not aligning themseves with (gasp!) software piracy.

""Organised crime DVD factories take money away from rights owners and use
it to fund organised criminal activities (which our government has claimed
includes drugs and terrorism). File sharers still take the money away
from the rights owners but at least your typical student file sharer will
be spending it on textbooks and beer"

Discuss..

Comments

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

> File sharers still take the money away
> from the rights owners

I think this is the main point of contention. With DVD Factories you definitely have people paying money for the content. That money is a tangible loss. It might not be the same price as buying it new in the high street, but it is still a sale.

I dont think that people can use the same argument against file sharers where no money has changed hands. There is no evidence of a loss.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

Perhaps drugs should be given out free by the government to combat organised crime :-)

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Actually that would make sense and at least defuse FAct :)

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Actually, there are places that use that model - and it seems to work until a tabloid finds out about it....

[devilgate.livejournal.com]

Not free, but legalisation and regulation are the ways to take control of distribution out of the hands of gangsters. And taxation would be an undoubtable bonus for the exchequer.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I don't want to start this war (zz) but the usual content industry argt is of course that if they hadn't downloaded free at least some would have bought. How many is of course the issue.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

and the converse about how many extra sales they will get once people have downloaded the album/film and decided they want a legal copy to support the artist/company into making more.

Certainly I'm still buying DVDs and CDs even though I *may* (ahem) be downloading some stuff (no, of course not, how could you ever suggest such a thing, and isn't the price of blank DVDs getting cheap!)

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I seem to have almost stopped BOTH buying CDS and er ahem downloading. Abundance breeds contempt? Or just no time?? In DVD case, why do either when there are 100s of channels repeating almost everything all the time?

[nmg.livejournal.com]

True. And before filesharing, many of us bought CDs that we then realised were unlistenable.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Although Fopp used to let you take them back, bet THAT's gone under HMV! *sighs nostalgically*

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

With CDs the industry BPI has somewhat alienated people by its use of police seizures of all stock regardless of legality, by acting allegedly on behalf of its members but seizing the material made available by non BPI members (despite theire protests) and generally thuggish acts that are I believe of questionable legality themselves.

I have known of artists whose response to being asked can I record your gig is to say 'yes as long as its not for commercial use, and can I have a copy myself' and even offer to let the taper use the mixing desk to get better quality. Meanwhile the management of the venue have attempted to throw the taper out depsite being told of this. It even says it in the liner notes of their CDs...

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

That's because the artists probably doesn't have the rights to pass on - they'll have sold their IP to their label/manager. And a premises that permits infringememnt of performance rights IP is liable itself. Perfectly sensible behaviour.

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

Fair point but in the case I witnessed (Steve Wynn at King Tuts a few years back) it actually says in the Artists CD liner notes that Taping for non-commercial purposes is ok, which is presumably something the Manager/Label is ok with?

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

But no way the premises can know you're not a commercial bootlegger in which case they, not you, get sued by the label... they;re in the worst position of anyone in the copyright wars.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

It's of vital importance that beer for students is properly funded.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Spot the student-dater!!!!