

Obama Administration Announces New Anti-Piracy Initiative - michalmarko
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100622/pl_afp/uscopyrighttrade_20100622192119

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CodeMage
_"Whether we are talking about fake Kevlar vests... or a bolt that fails on an
airplane engine, we cannot afford to purchase fake goods. This is not just
about the new Robin Hood movie," said Biden._

Maybe my interpretation is wrong, but the "logic" seems to be: piracy is about
copyright (one kind of intellectual property) infringement, counterfeit goods
are about trademark (another kind of intellectual property) infringement,
therefore they should be in the same bag. That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it?

~~~
michael_dorfman
I agree that the article is lacking in nuance, but let's not throw the baby
out with the bathwater.

The "piracy" that Biden, et al, are speaking of here is not individuals
downloading torrents, but bootleggers (largely in China) reproducing and
selling works. And, in this case, the similarities are strong.

When you buy an item-- be it a Xanax, a Kevlar vest, or a Pink Floyd CD-- you
want to know that it is "authentic" (i.e., made to the proper spec) which
implies "authorized".

That's not such a big stretch, is it?

~~~
narag
People that download torrents don't give a fuck about its "authenticity".

~~~
Groxx
Because... they _like_ getting viruses instead of what they googled?

~~~
chrischen
No, because it's free.

~~~
Groxx
Except for the time spent downloading it, in some cases days / weeks. And the
implied risk, however small it's interpreted to be. And the danger of it being
a virus (diminishing, but applicable). And etc etc etc.

Nothing's "free" to the extent that people wouldn't care if it's crap.
Actually, there's a nice analogy: that flaming bag of dog doo on your porch
was likely free too, but it _may_ cause damage. Is it a non-issue because it's
free?

~~~
chrischen
> Except for the time spent downloading it, in some cases days / weeks. And
> the implied risk, however small it's interpreted to be. And the danger of it
> being a virus (diminishing, but applicable). And etc etc etc.

Downloading is asynchronous. It may cost some computer resources, but probably
not any which you would not have used anyways.

You're missing the point. It's practically free, certainly much freer than the
retail price. And usually finding the illegal version something (that's worth
it) is just a matter of time.

People illegally downloading don't care about _authenticity_ because it's
practically free and is worth it to them. Obviously if the time it takes to
acquire it illegally over legally is more than its worth to the person, he/she
wouldn't do it (or shouldn't do it), but for the majority of people it isn't
true.

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billybob
Media piracy and fake Kevlar vests are completely different issues.

A few random points that should be considered about media piracy: 1) Copyright
exists to encourage the creation of new works - ie to benefit the public, not
the creators per se. 2) Copyright is a two-edged sword. Maybe knowing that you
can copyright a song encourages your creativity. But knowing that they can't
reuse your song discourages someone else's. (And reuse of others' work is old
- classical composers borrowed others' music or poetry frequently.) 3)
Consumers should recognize that NEVER buying movies, music, etc, but ALWAYS
pirating them, will mean that some media, like music, is much harder to make,
and other media, like big-budget films, are impossible. So it's in fans'
interest to buy at least sometimes. 4) On the other hand, media producers have
not convincingly shown (to my knowledge) that piracy is really hurting them.
Clearly not every download is a lost sale: demand at price 0 will always be
greater than at price $15, and piracy may expose people to band which they
later buy from (this has happened to me). A decline in music revenues may be
partly linked to a rise in video games and other entertainment.

~~~
w1ntermute
_Media piracy and fake Kevlar vests are completely different issues._

But it's pretty easy to conflate them without any objections from the
uninformed American public.

~~~
anamax
> But it's pretty easy to conflate them without any objections from the
> uninformed American public.

Do you think that Biden actually understands the difference? If he does, do
you think that he cares?

------
ericbb
They want to protect the public from unsafe false copies? I can suggest this
for software: educate the public on the use of simple cryptographic tools. The
public needs to know how to check for themselves that their torrented copy is
an authentic copy.

If they want to protect obsolete business models from technology, I would
suggest the following: reduce the privacy and freedom of the entire public by
spending lots of public money on big brother programs.

The article gave me the uneasy feeling that they are trying to use the first
problem to justify the second solution.

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mmagin
So, I guess this is the USA's side of compliance to the new copyright treaty
that was being cooked up in secret?

It's so tiresome seeing copyright infringement conflated with the counterfeit
physical goods which may cause their users physical harm due to not complying
with expected specifications.

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bigstorm
"Piracy hurts, it hurts our economy," Vice President Joe Biden said in
releasing the 61-page plan drafted

61-page draft and ask him to sum it up and he will go nuts!! He has no idea
what he is speaking of..just a beau talk

~~~
bobbyi
He also apparently speak in comma splices.

~~~
philwelch
Many people do. Spoken language rarely transcribes to good written language.

~~~
bobbyi
All that is required to transcribe that quote correctly (and a few others in
the article) is to use a semicolon instead of a comma.

~~~
philwelch
Oh, I know. One of my friends noted the same thing recently--people use
semicolons all the time in spoken language. But in written language it looks
pretentious somehow.

~~~
chc
People don't use semicolons in speech — they use emdashes.

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thecircusb0y
In the end Piracy saves us... [http://www.crunchgear.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/06/cmToK.j...](http://www.crunchgear.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/06/cmToK.jpg)

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kiba
Yahoo! More angry customers for entrepreneurs to capture.

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steveklabnik
Recently, I came across one of the best things I've ever read on the whole IP
topic: Against Intellectual Monopoly:
<http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm>

Don't be fooled by the shitty site, these are Cambridge professors, they just
also put the book online.

It shows lots of amazing examples throughout history where the concept of IP
actually hurt business, not helped. One good example: Dickens was heavily
copied and sold here in America, because British copyrights didn't apply here.
In the UK, his books sold for $6 each; in America, they sold for $0.06 (or
so).

He made more money here.

~~~
rjett
"In the UK, his books sold for $6 each; in America, they sold for $0.06 (or
so)"

I wonder how much this fun fact is skewed by the fact that the pound was worth
way more than the cheap American paper money during the time (not to mention
that a lot of states printed their own money, so it would be quite difficult
to compile a relative exchange rate).

~~~
steveklabnik
I don't remember exactly, as I was borrowing a friend's copy, so I read it
pretty quickly.

They cited all their sources, though. I'm assuming that trivial of a mistake
wouldn't be made.

