That's fucking stupid

Posts Tagged ‘piracy’

James Murdoch has been blathering on about piracy like he knows something about it.

He’s made that classic mistake of saying that piracy is like

going into a store and stealing Pringles or a handbag.

Of course that’s largely because he’s an idiot. Let’s clear things up shall we?

Piracy is nothing like walking into a store and stealing a handbag or some pringles, it’s more like studying a handbag then buying your own leather and making an exact replica; or in the case of pringles buying your own cocaine and rubbing it on crisps.

Sharing music online is more like taking those aforementioned home made copies and making more copies to give away to your friends for free.

Where you would be crossing the line was if you sold those handbags or crisps to others, and profited from the similarity to the original. This is like downloading a movie and then selling it on DVD down at your local laundrette.

So really, the law has kinda got it licked. They don’t stop you making your own handbags/crisps but they do try to stop people selling counterfeit handbags, although I don’t think there have been many cases of counterfeit pringles.

Can we end this bullshit piracy debate now that we’ve got that cleared up?

They guys that run thepiratebay.org have been found guilty of copyright infringement. Here’s your quick guide to what this means:

• Was what they were doing illegal? Depends on your juristiction; they never actually hosted illegal files, they just made it easier for people to find them. In some places that’s fine and in others it’s not.
• Will this make a difference? Probably not. There are tonnes of other countries that are not as fussed about copyright so there will always be a safe haven for thepiratebay.
• Was what they were doing wrong? Tough to define right and wrong with copyright. If you sell copyright material then you are depriving the copyright owner of revenue, if you give it away then chances are you aren’t because most people who watch pirate movies wouldn’t watch them if they had to pay. Some people argue that file sharing means that people watch movies that they normally wouldn’t and so revenue is increased because a proportion of these people then go on to recommend the movie to paying customers or buy the DVD themselves.
• Couldn’t some research into buying habits clear this all up? Maybe, but all the research is funded by the movie industry and they only pay for their preferred answer.
• Is this going to be seen as a huge victory by Hollywood? Hell yes.
• Is it? Not really.