PoleCat Posted January 19, 2012 Posted January 19, 2012 I wonder what would happen if everyone put links to banned websites censored content on their websites. Then they'd have to censor the entire internet, which is near impossible. Impossible? Might want to ask China about that one. ;) http://www.104thphoenix.com/
diveplane Posted January 19, 2012 Author Posted January 19, 2012 (edited) i think the voting on these bills are monday the 23rd jan , i cannot believe what happening here in the states, obama signs the 1867 bill , and now this for more slaps and kicks in the faces, constitution is being torn up right before our eyes. Edited January 19, 2012 by diveplane https://www.youtube.com/user/diveplane11 DCS Audio Modding.
Total Posted January 19, 2012 Posted January 19, 2012 (edited) Copyright law needs a re-think, plain and simple. It originated in an era when information took weeks or months to travel throughout the world. Now anyone with internet access can see something as minuscule as a single post on a forum nearly the instant it is posted. The purpose of copyright law is to give the content creator the right to make money off of what they create over a set period of time before their content enters public domain. Why is it that as technology allows information to travel faster, the laws have been changed to lengthen the time a work stays under copyright? Shouldn't it be the other way around or at least stay mostly static? Disclaimer - I DO NOT SUPPORT SOPA OR PIPA! That's not the purpose of the copyright law. I own copyrights on the music I have made, but I'm not making a dime off of it. There's other laws and policies in place that I'd have to follow in order to make money. The copyright law itself is fine. It doesn't have a thing to do with money. It's name says it all - it protects work from being copied. Any copy of copyrighted material is an illegal act. Those are MY songs. YOU cannot copy them as your own, distribute them without MY consent, or use any part of them as your own. That's the prupose of the copyright law. It protects MY work for ME. Now, say I got a record deal and my music was released for sale. The sale and distribution is up to the record label or publishing company. As per the standard contract, I would get 1 point per sale in an approved retail outlet in the US. The standard conversion is 1 dollar per point. Out of that $15 you pay for a CD, the average group gets $1. Deduct point percentages for non-approved outlets (aka independent retailers), major outelts overseas, non-approved overseas outlets, etc. Online sales actually get the weakest points for the artist. The last 11 pages of a contract specify the points breakout. Everyone who downloaded a copy of my CD without buying it would be keeping money from my pocket. It's the equivalent of you getting a job providing a specialized tech support that you tailored, yet at the end of the week, you are told you COULD HAVE made $500 more, but people were getting YOUR answers from somewhere else for free - even though it was illegal to do so. The internet has made people think they deserve to be able to get music, movies, etc for free just because it's there and they want it. They feel entitled to it. I personally knew a band who lost over $1,000,000 in sales figured based upon Napster downloads alone. That doesn't include http downloads or usenet downloads. The bassist was working as a carpet installer in between legs of the tour in order to keep the bills paid and his 4 year old daughter fed. Those lost sales of illegal downloads would have helped him greatly. I invested years of my life and, all said an done, over $100,000 towards the writing and recording of my music. The venture failed. I knew that risk when I started the journey. Had it have had some measure of success though, I would have been completely irate had I found that it could have been much greater success had several million people just took my work for free simply because they wanted it for free. End question: If you found out you can have been a millionaire as a result of your talent and hard work, but weren't because millions of people stole your product instead of buying - would you be pissed and want some way to protect the sale of your work so you could actually benefit from it? It's easy to criticize when you're not the artist in between the industry and fans and getting butt-raped by both. SOPA & PIPA's intent at controlling piracy is fine, but how the bills are worded make them extremely dangerous. Throw in the Authorisation Act and the Patriot Act and you have a triad of laws that border on Martial Law. Also, throw in the fact that the US Congress never ratified the Geneva Convention of 1977 and now you have a real pickle of political power if SOPA and/or PIPA go through. Edited January 19, 2012 by Total
Grimes Posted January 19, 2012 Posted January 19, 2012 The right to make money off of something implies ownership of it:D I personally knew a band who lost over $1,000,000 in sales figured based upon Napster downloads alone. Is that before or after they received 1 dollar for every sale? 67,000 downloads vs 15,000,000. So which is the problem? People downloading it or that the artists got payed a small percentage for what they did sell. And lets be honest, when Napster was HUGE there were no decent online distribution service for music. Now, things are different you've got amazon, itunes, spotify, and many more. End question: If you found out you can have been a millionaire as a result of your talent and hard work, but weren't because millions of people stole your product instead of buying - would you be pissed and want some way to protect the sale of your work so you could actually benefit from it? I'd wonder what I did to make it be pirated so much. Was the initial price to high? Did I put DRM on it that sucked? Even if I could have sold 2x the number of copies I did (getting to 1m) I'd be pretty content that I made $500,000 (still a poor college grad) and I'd invest in future stuff to sell or figure out why it was pirated. Piracy will always exist. Its all about making it easier/better for the people who do buy stuff without screwing them over in the process. The right man in the wrong place makes all the difference in the world. Current Projects: Grayflag Server, Scripting Wiki Useful Links: Mission Scripting Tools MIST-(GitHub) MIST-(Thread) SLMOD, Wiki wishlist, Mission Editing Wiki!, Mission Building Forum
Total Posted January 19, 2012 Posted January 19, 2012 (edited) Hate it when I wake up and can't go back to sleep - ugh... In this band's case, they sold less than 100,000 copies in the US. Now, divide that up among all those who have to get paid a percentage: six members + management + agents + costs of putting on a live tour. In order to play a tour, you have to pay for the following: Lighting System Rental Sound System Rental Transportation rental for Equipment and Personnel Road Crew Local Crew Labor Venue Rental Fee Rental for a spot at the venue to sell swag (band items) Venue Fees for Sales Sate and Federal Tax on Sales They were in the red. 95% of the artists you hear on the radio aren't even selling a million copies. Most less than half of that. Most of that money goes to pay back the advance the label gave the artist to record their material in a professional studio and have it mixed/mastered to industry standards. Obtaining material that is under a license to be sold illegally is well, illegal. No other way to put it. Also, have you noticed that a great majority of the bands no longer put up full length song samples for download? That's the label doing that. The moment a band gets signed, they no longer own the rights to their music. The label owns the rights. They also own distribution and mechanical rights. The artist, in order to have a shot at "making it" signs away almost everything they worked for. They're paid by the label. The only work-arounds are to be so hugely famous that you can dictate your own terms to the label or create your own label. Creating your own label is easy to do, but getting distribution into outlets that can actually move your product is alot more difficult due to those outlets having contractual agreements with the labels. I've had three songs played on the radio and gotten my little check from BMI. It was a patlry amount since the songs were played in the wee hours of the morning. The fact of the matter is that illegal downloads of material have caused artists of all types to go broke because they're not able to recoup their investment. The internet is a gold mine for exposure, but it's also a devil when it comes to watching potential income drift away in the form of illegal distribution. Why do people pirate things? In the late 90's and very early 2000's, I used to a run an ftp with the alt.2600.warez group. M$ shut me down for being one of the first people to distribute the leaked copy of XP Corporate. I was lucky I didn't get pulled into court. they had me dead to rights on it and could have pulled in the publishers of the other software I had on my ftp. I did it because it was a fun way to try out new software and a way to get what I wanted/needed since I could not afford to buy it. $9.61/hr before taxes, health insurance, and mandatory company stock savings deductions didn't leave me alot after the bills and living expenses were paid. Even my computer at the time was made of hand-me-down components people I knew didn't use anymore. It still doesn't excuse the fact that I was illegally distributing material without a license. I was illegally obtaining it and then giving it away to whoever wanted it. And I knew full well what I was doing was illegal, but didn't really care. The thrill and pride of getting what I wanted, how I wanted overrode the fear of getting caught or suffering any consequences. In short - I was acting like a spoiled child who thought I deserved to get what I wanted since it was readily available anyway and I couldn't afford it otherwise. The laws need to be redone - true. The way distribution is performed needs to be redone - true. The prices are too high - true at times, other times it's not. How much needs to be charged to ensure all employees and operating costs are paid and still make a profit to develop future matierial? There's no wasy answer. SOPA and PIPA aren't the right answers. Those laws are being proposed to protect the profits and interests of the big players in the entertainment industries. There's still nothing being put in place that will protect the income, profit, and interest of the creators of the material. There's no laws going into place to keep the consumers from being charged too much for something. In order to maintain "Free Enterprise", a balance must be maintained. Too much regulation and the balance tips in the favor of those who control the regulations. Too little and it tips in favor of those who can avert the system. Either way, the creators of the material usually get shafted the most out of the three parties (creators, corporations, consumers). Now to try and go back to sleep. Was in a metting until 10 tonight and back at it early in the morning. Was able to squeeze in an hour online at least :D Edited January 19, 2012 by Total
Depth Posted January 19, 2012 Posted January 19, 2012 This internet blackout thing strikes me as odd. It is a protest. The point of a protest is to send a message, but now we are protesting denial of service - by denying service. Isn't this similar to "F**king for Virginity"? Likely I'm just too tired and thinking about this like Karl Pilkington [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
sobek Posted January 19, 2012 Posted January 19, 2012 Not really, the acts would cause a lot of censorship to happen, with many sites no longer being available (at least in their current form), hence the blackout to raise awareness. Good, fast, cheap. Choose any two. Come let's eat grandpa! Use punctuation, save lives!
PlainSight Posted January 19, 2012 Posted January 19, 2012 MPAA & RIAA worried about piracy? Maybe it's time for the elite corporations and banksters to start living more morally and stop stealing and screwing with people on a daily basis. When such transfers of wealth from bottom to the top happen, like with recent bailouts, internet piracy should be the least of their concern. People are getting robbed by the banks, let's censor THEM! [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Bucic Posted January 19, 2012 Posted January 19, 2012 MPAA & RIAA worried about piracy? Maybe it's time for the elite corporations and banksters to start living more morally and stop stealing and screwing with people on a daily basis. When such transfers of wealth from bottom to the top happen, like with recent bailouts, internet piracy should be the least of their concern. People are getting robbed by the banks, let's censor THEM! True. I'm far from justifying small crimes 'because bigger crimes happen' but in many cases it's hard not to scream 'Adjust your freaking scale!'. But then again - I can't think of an argument pro 'leaving piracy alone' after blocking SOPA and PIPA. F-5E simpit cockpit dimensions and flight controls Kill the Bloom - shader glow mod Poor audio Doppler effect in DCS [bug] Trees - huge performance hit especially up close
hassata Posted January 19, 2012 Posted January 19, 2012 There's one battle down: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16614643 [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
PoleCat Posted January 20, 2012 Posted January 20, 2012 This guy has it right. "burnaftereading 19th January 2012 - 11:29 Wikipedia is a non-profit organisation which has earned the trust the public has placed in it with its squeaky clean history. 8 million Americans understand that politicians do not work for them, but for their lobbyists. Even without knowing the specific details of SOPA, gut instinct tells you who is right and who is wrong.." http://www.104thphoenix.com/
hassata Posted January 20, 2012 Posted January 20, 2012 (edited) An interesting article on megaupload:http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/why-the-feds-smashed-megaupload.ars A great TED video on SOPA/PIPA: -LEb_D2SD3k#! Edited January 20, 2012 by hassata [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
diveplane Posted January 20, 2012 Author Posted January 20, 2012 and so its started , us goverment has closed down megaupload and megavideo. https://www.youtube.com/user/diveplane11 DCS Audio Modding.
hassata Posted January 21, 2012 Posted January 21, 2012 SOPA and PIPA put on hold for now: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16655272 [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
leafer Posted January 22, 2012 Posted January 22, 2012 (edited) P.S. Don't bother with the purple koolaid over at Fox either. If you are looking for facts there you will find not but propaganda and lies. If you seek "news" and information there you are already lost and helping to carry water for those that will use it to drown you. A recent poll showed that people who get their news from FOX are less well informed than those who watch no news at all. It's time to stop the clown car over there and let all the clowns get out and go home. Out Yes, I feel your anger. I stopped watching free TV seven years ago when I accidentally discovered KPFK.org, 90.7 FM if you're in Los Angeles. I've been in Thailand for the past 7 plus years and I don't allow my daughter to watch free TV here either. I cannot believe the stupidity displays daily on these over dramatic soap operas and game shows. My god, man... no wonder why there's no creativity here. None. If you ask these people to come up with an original idea their heads would explode dung beetles. As for America waking up, unfortunately, not gonna happen as long as FOX remains number 1 source for news. Funny, in LA where the majority are minorities, but they seem more aware than your average suburban white Americans ํ Edited January 22, 2012 by leafer ED have been taking my money since 1995. :P
Bucic Posted January 23, 2012 Posted January 23, 2012 I liked the general commotion despite more and more common apathy to whatever subject you can think of. Now, how do you ignite mobilization similar to that related to the SOPA/ACTA on other no less vital fields like e.g. GMO in the light of food supply monopolization due to patents? (just an example, please don't discuss this here) That aside - what next? There's always the danger of the anti-SOPA protest being a burst that will get weaker and weaker every time politicians bring it up again. F-5E simpit cockpit dimensions and flight controls Kill the Bloom - shader glow mod Poor audio Doppler effect in DCS [bug] Trees - huge performance hit especially up close
diveplane Posted January 23, 2012 Author Posted January 23, 2012 SOPA and PIPA put on hold for now: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16655272 put on hold yet they shut down sites...lies lies lies https://www.youtube.com/user/diveplane11 DCS Audio Modding.
RIPTIDE Posted January 26, 2012 Posted January 26, 2012 Fail Poland. http://rt.com/news/acta-poland-internet-government-745/ " ACTA action: Poland signs up to 'censorship'" [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
Bucic Posted January 26, 2012 Posted January 26, 2012 (edited) No surprise there. Our politicians have always been keen on sucking up to corporate minions who rule the EU. Pitiful and nothing more. Then of course is the thing of them not coming from outer space but being chosen in elections. If a certain group of politicians is known for ALWAYS taking the side of corporations and is granted millions of votes again it's hard to blame the politicians, isn't it? Another thing - people think it's only ACTA which got assembled under the tables. So, so wrong. Edited January 26, 2012 by Bucic F-5E simpit cockpit dimensions and flight controls Kill the Bloom - shader glow mod Poor audio Doppler effect in DCS [bug] Trees - huge performance hit especially up close
hassata Posted January 30, 2012 Posted January 30, 2012 Very informative infographic: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/28/infographic-hollywoods-long.html [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
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