Pirate Bay owners sentenced to prison

In the same way burglary or shoplifting is a vote with the wallet - the thief wants something, but (s)he doesn't want to pay for it.

 

It's happening so readily because it's easy and generally consequence-free for the perpetrators.

At least you (somewhat) admit you're guilty of some wrongdoing in such a case... Many argue there is nothing wrong with it.

Again at least the implication you are making is that piracy is wrong, but people do it because they believe they won't get caught.

 

Sure, but the problem I see is those who beleive it isn't or shouldn't be a crime.

 

Eh, I don't think that there's a direct correlation between warez album downloads and concert attendance, or sales for that matter. It's all wishful thinking and guesswork. If the artists actually believed that (the well-known ones, that is), none of them would be against it. And I think that they know their field and customers better than anyone else.

Also, many artists don't enjoy performing live very often and some don't do it all (e.g. Enya). You can't reduce every musician to a daily/weekly live entertainer.

None that would come even close to justifying piracy, as far as I'm concerned.

Already answered by others.

Eh?

You could say that, I suppose... not sure if the courts would decide that that's the case, however. But still, that's more than most pirates are willing to admit to.

Well, fell free.

First of all, I would not hesitate to remove any files containing IP that their authors wouldn't allow to be used in such a way. YouTube operates on the same principle - everything's allowed, but if the IP owner wants it removed, they remove it. This obviously isn't the best way to go about things, but tracking down every potential IP holder based on a video uploaded would in most cases be practically impossible. But at least the IP holders are able to request its removal as soon as it is identified. Some do that, some don't, or at least not immediately - because the promotional value is worth the losses incurred for some of them.

Torrent networks as a rule don't remove anything, or if they do, they just put it up again under a slightly different name.

Secondly, I could argue in good faith that given the very limited usability of the portrait packs and sound sets and the very small parts of the artists' works that get used, that their use for these purposes would be covered under the "fair use" doctrine.

Thirdly, given the content's obvious limitations and usability for a single purpose, I could argue that just like it is the case with radio stations, the artist is getting more promotional value out of their art/voice being used in such a way than they are losing by it (despite the fact that I don't pay them for the privilege, yes).

There is also the chance that the artist doesn't mind their works being used in such a way (or even encourages it), and certain well-known artists have taken such a stance on this issue. Others, understandably, are against it.

In the end, is having such material up 100% legal? In some cases yes, in some no. But the circumstances regarding it are significantly different than with your regular movie, book or game warez, where the works in their entirety are copied. With clips used in sound sets and portraits, that is obviously not the case.

 

It doesn't work taken out of context of the my entire response, but the argument is similar, sure. Only here it actually has merit, unlike in the case of mass piracy. There are no "obvious limitations and usability for a single purpose" with pirated music, movies, games, etc. A pirated movie (album, game...) can be every bit as good and usable as a digitally purchased legitimate version, whereas you'll never piece together even a single artwork from clips in portrait packs or an entire movie from a few minutes of one actor's voice clips.

 

Multiple times in this thread already. If you don't want to accept the answers or if you have any specific questions, you'll need to ask them.

You'll need to explain further because I still don't understand what you're asking. How are artists "manipulating and profiting" from a form of sharing and what's average Joe got to do with it?

Laws vary greatly from one country to another, but naturally, loopholes should be closed, not left open for exploitation.

That's not fair use.

Not at the sizes and close-ups provided in portrait packs. Not to mention no one in the world that I know of has ever even attempted such a thing, so it's not an example based on reality. Images used for print need to be of much higher quality and size than the thumbnail sizes of portraits.

I'm not assuming anything, I'm speaking about cases where the graphic artists have declared so themselves, publicly. For them, at least, their position is clear and known.

Also, the majority of companies and publishers by default are "money hungry" - they're not a charity, they're in business to make a profit. So accusing them of being "money hungry" is as silly as me accusing you of being "money hungry" because you don't work for the minimum wage emptying garbage cans.

That's nonsense and incomparable to what I wrote. There are hundreds of millions of pirates. But there's only one YouTube and one Sorcerer's Place.

And again, portrait thumbnails and voice clips are not something that their creators are selling and are being deprived of any sales due to them being available. There is no comparison between that and full copies of games, movies, music albums or anything similar being sold.

I disagree, but you're free to believe that, of course.

 

That's not necessarily true, because the original licence holder could decide to begin offering it for paid digital download at any point... and many have done that in the last few years. Of course, this only goes for companies which made or published those games and are still in business... if a product is basically dead due to the developer and/or publisher going under, the chances of that happening are much smaller.

There's also the fact that if the IP isn't being commercially exploited by the owner at the time (especially over extended periods), the chances that they'll be scouring the Internet for violations is also significantly smaller. Some companies have also released their old titles into the public domain, but that's a very small percentage of titles overall.

As for financial damage... well, you also have to take into account the potential dilution of the brand and potential loss of sales due to unintended exposure. A company could decide to sleep on a given title or series 10 years or more only to build up steam for a massive comeback with a sequel or a reimaging (or a re-release of the original on simpler devices, like cell phones), which could be negatively affected by having the original games spread as abandonware during the time.

But those are all rather big IFs; my bet is on the fact that only a relatively small number of people are even interested in abandonware and that it's tolerated in most cases because the marketing potential of it is worth it, or simply because it's not worth the effort to litigate over titles that have no potential future.