Author Archives: Brit

Slashdot: Considering a Fair Penalty For Illegal File-sharing

by | Copyfight, Copyright, Intellectual Property, Piracy
26

Slashdot: Considering a Fair Penalty For Illegal File-sharing

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt, following up on yesterday’s announcement of the 1.5 million dollar verdict against Jammie Thomas:

“This week a federal jury handed down the verdict in the third file-sharing trial against a Minnesota mother of four who has been fighting against the charges brought by the RIAA since 2005. Understandably, a lot of people are outraged by this verdict and while reading through comments about the fine on some online forums, I saw some interesting opinions on how these fines should be assessed. The point that $62,500 per song is excessively high seems to be something that everyone can agree on, but what actually is fair seems to be a big point of contention.”(Link)

While I think this is a reasonable question, and think the penalties are absurdly large, Slashdot quickly descended into a chorus of “there should be no penalty; piracy should be legal” arguments with other people voting them up. It’s irritating and frightening to see technology sites decend into this kind of nonsense. It’s like being a store owner and seeing a majority of people arguing that they feel completely justified stealing everything they want from stores [insert thin justification here] – oblivious to the consequences to stores or society. Even worse, I sort of feel a kinship with tech-savy people, so it feels like a betrayal by people who should know better.

What I find most odd about the whole thing is how their judgment changes when some company benefits from piracy. Two days ago, there was a story on Slashdot about a cookbook that took a recipe from the internet. When this was discovered, the company responded with “everything on the internet is public domain; we did the original author a favor”. People weren’t too happy about a company earning money by taking a recipe from an individual and selling it. Yet, so many of the comments in the “Considering a Fair Penalty For Illegal File-sharing” article work equally well to argue for the company’s “right” to take and print up someone else’s recipe.

Some examples:

You are the fool that allows an idiotic fine like this to happen. Pirating music is not like stealing cars. I’ll repeat: pirating music is not like stealing cars. When I download a torrent, NO ONE LOSES ANYTHING. The publishing company doesnt end up with one less copy of the album on their hard drives, the artist doesnt lose the ability to play the song. I would never have paid for that album, and no one who downloads through me would pay for it either. No one loses anything. (Link)

Put into the context of taking someone’s copyrighted material and selling it (as the cookbook creator did):

You are the fool that allows an idiotic fine like this to happen. Pirating [recipes] is not like stealing cars. I’ll repeat: pirating [recipes] is not like stealing cars. When I put [someone else’s recipe in my cookbook], NO ONE LOSES ANYTHING. The [cook] doesnt end up with one less copy of the [the recipe] on their hard drives, the [cook] doesnt lose the ability to [make the recipe]. I would never have paid for that [recipe], and no one who [reads my cookbook] through me would pay for it either. No one loses anything.

Slashdot:

Just because they downloaded does not mean that the product is worth paying for. Besides, this is completely irrelevant. Logically, pirates take nothing from anyone. The only argument that I’ve ever seen (and it’s a terrible one) is the “potential profit” argument. But, really, it’s impossible to steal money that only exists in the future of an alternate dimension where the artist/business made more money. Also, everyone in existence is ‘guilty’ of ‘stealing’ profit that others could, potentially, have had (you ‘deprive’ someone of potential profit merely by choosing not to buy a product). Our illogical capitalistic society is what needs fixing. (Link)

Put into the context of taking someone’s copyrighted material and selling it (as the cookbook creator did):

Just because [the cookbook creator used the recipe] does not mean that the [recipe] is worth paying for. Besides, this is completely irrelevant. Logically, pirates [like the cookbook creator] take nothing from anyone. The only argument that I’ve ever seen (and it’s a terrible one) is the “potential profit” argument. But, really, it’s impossible to steal money that only exists in the future of an alternate dimension where the artist/business made more money. Also, everyone in existence is ‘guilty’ of ‘stealing’ profit that others could, potentially, have had (you ‘deprive’ someone of potential profit merely by choosing not to buy a product). Our illogical capitalistic society is what needs fixing.

This would mean, of course, that the original creator of the recipe (or any writing, music, software, movie, etc) has no grounds to complain if some company takes their work and sells it.

Slashdot:

Has it occurred to you that you are proposing the destruction of the value of human labor on a massive scale?
Nonsense….
That’s what a labor market is like; you get paid for your actual labor, not the fruits thereof, or all the value that the fruits might yield.
If authors cannot sell many copies of their book (the fruit of labor) because people just copy the few that were sold, and then copy the copies, and so on, they’ll just change models or get a better job. Perhaps an author will demand payment up front — $10 per hour of writing, or something — and find that it works better, since no one yet knows how to copy him. (Link)

Put into the context of taking someone’s copyrighted material and selling it (as the cookbook creator did):

It’s perfectly okay for the cookbook publisher to take the recipe or any text written by any author, put it into a book and sell it. The original author should “get paid for your actual labor, not the fruits thereof, or all the value that the fruits might yield”.

How silly that a “lawyer”, of all people, can’t see through the illogicalness of his own statement.

Of course, this can be generalized to a lot more than cookbook recipes – the ultimate outcome being that companies can sell copies of music, books, music, whatever they want because “copying isn’t theft”, and “you can’t prove anyone would’ve bought it (at full price)”. At least there were a lot of comments in the cookbook article attacking slashdotters for their double-standard. Personally, I think the distinction between “free piracy” and “pirate and sell” is a bit of an arbitrary distinction, since most of the consequences are the same.

Influencers [Video]

by | Cool Stuff, Video
Reply

I have to admit that I take this video with a grain of salt. There’s also something odd about juxtaposing Michael Jordan with Ghandi. Sure, they’re both iconic. But, I’m not sure that Jordan is really much of an “influencer” (in terms of being avant garde or an early adopter) except for the fact that he’s famous for being such a good athlete. Being influential because you’re ultra famous is actually pretty easy.

Craigslist Scam

by | Miscellaneous
Reply

A friend of mine got caught up in a craigslist scam recently. I’ve heard of a number of craigslist scams, and feel like I have a good idea on warning signs, but this one was new to me.

My friend contacted someone about buying some furniture. The woman told her that the furniture was still available for sale. A little while later, the same woman contacted her again and said that someone else sent her an email about buying the furniture, but it went to her spam mail folder. She wanted to sell it to the first person since they replied to the ad first. But, the woman explained, she wanted to make it up to my friend. She worked at a dental office and a company was giving them teeth whitening samples for cheap – something like $4, which was 90% off the regular price. My friend could go to a website, punch in a special code and get the same 90% discount that their dental office workers are getting. So, my friend figured “why not?” She went out to the website, punched in the code and ordered them. A $4 charge showed up on her credit card. Then, a little while later, another $1.50 charge. My friend thought that was odd, but didn’t worry too much about it. Then, her bank contacted her because they had tried to withdraw hundreds of dollars out of her account, but the bank had put a hold on the transaction. My friend went back to the website, but it was gone.

Fortunately, it doesn’t sound like my friend lost any money, but her money was tied-up for a few days while the bank put a hold on it. (I don’t actually know why the bank wouldn’t let her access it. Maybe they were unsure of the status of the transaction.) The $1.50 charge was a test to see if they could pull more money from the account after the initial $4.

USSR’s Moon Lander

by | Cool Stuff
Reply

This is a pretty cool picture of the USSR’s moon lander. (The USSR never ended up sending a man to the moon.) See more pictures and read more about it here, and read more about the Soviet LK Lander here.

The LK (Lunniy Korabl—”lunar craft”) was a Soviet lunar lander and counterpart of the American Lunar Module (LM). The LK was to have landed a single Soviet citizen on the Moon before the Americans. It completed development and was test flown successfully in Earth orbit, but never reached the Moon because the N1 rocket required to take it to the Moon was never successful.
…
The success of Project Apollo in putting American astronauts on the Moon in 1969 meant that the United States won the Moon race, giving the deathblow to the Soviet moon program, although plans were drawn up until the early 1970s.

Tactical AI Notes

by | Empires of Steel
1

One of the things I’ve been working on lately is the tactical AI. I wanted the AI to be better at coordinating attacks. The image above shows pathway and timing information created by the AI. (The numbers in tenths of a turn, so “17” means “1.7 turns”.) In this image, an infantry is being picked up by a transport in about 1.7 turns, rides inside the transport until around turn 5.7 and then moves into enemy territory. The timing information is useful for coordinating multiple units – so that it’s better at bringing all its transports simultaneously, moving combat ships into the area to protect transports, etc.

Used Games and Rights

by | Game Development, Games, Society
Reply

A new article says that a US court has ruled that software publishers can prevent reselling software (i.e. used software). The ruling (if upheard) could allow publishers to kill the used games business. The whole “used games” and “used software” sales market has been opposed by a few companies. Some companies see used sales as undermining new sales, and while I don’t agree with their attempts to eliminate used-sales, I can understand why they would be irritated by the fact that GameStop makes a lot of money from used-game sales. Nearly half of GameStop’s profit comes from used-game sales. Because of their markups, GameStop earns 85% more money on the sale of a used game than a new one. At the same time, the publisher gets paid when a new game is sold, but not a used one.

Autodesk* has also tried for years to shut-down used sales of its software – including blocking eBay sales. The typical method for doing this in the software world is to give users a “licence”. When software is counted as a “licence” rather than a “sale”, it opens up more options for publishers to restrict what a user can do with that software. For example, they can sell the user a non-transferable licence (i.e. no software resales). On the other hand, if software is “sold”, then it falls into the legal structure of the “first sale doctrine” which means users can do things like resell their software. The first sale doctrine was originally setup a hundred years ago, and applied to things like books. Book publishers tried to shut-down used bookstores (for fear that used book sales were undermining new book sales), but courts handed down the “first sale doctrine” that said people can resell them. The main way that software “licences” are being challenged is by arguing that publishers are using “licence” as a legal ploy to restrict what users can do, when, in fact, it’s really a “sale” masquerading under the “licence” term.

I think there’s a certain logic to preventing used-game sales, I just don’t think it’s strong enough logic to convince me that users should not be allowed to resell their software or buy used software. I also think the act of shutting down used-sales creates a degree of dissatisfaction among users, and creates the idea that companies have too much control in their lives what they can do with their software. This unhappiness among users has to be weighed against the monetary benefit of eliminating used sales. While eliminating used sales might increase revenue in the short term, it might create longer-lasting resentment, as well. As we all know, CEOs of companies can be ridiculously short-sighted – either because everything is measured and rewarded on a short-term basis, or because they lack foresight. Based on that, I have very little faith in business leaders making the right long-term choice.

On a more positive note, it’s rumored that Steam will begin allowing users to sell their games back to Steam (at a reduced price, of course). Presumably, their logic is that players who can sell back bad games will be more willing to buy new ones (i.e. there is less risk involved since they can get back some of their money if they don’t like the game). Even if it doesn’t immediately result in more sales, it makes their customers happier which keeps them coming back. Funny how companies seem to be moving in opposite directions. Also, I don’t really expect used-game/software sales to disappear anytime soon. GameStop is bringing in $1 billion per year from used-game sales, so they’ll spend millions to block any disruption of the used-games market.

* Footnote: I have to admit that I’m not really a fan of Autodesk. They have a tendency to buy up their competitors (e.g. Maya and SoftImage), in an apparent attempt to prevent meaningful competition in the 3D Modeling world. This allows them to charge higher prices.

Google Knows All

by | Miscellaneous
Reply

I was just at the coffeeshop, and about fifteen to twenty people came in for a meeting. I could sort of hear what they were talking about. Thought I’d check out what the group was, so I typed in the coffeeshop name, today’s date, and “meetup”. The first google result told me what their group was and linked to their website. It seems slightly creepy that I could quickly come up with so much information so quickly. Twenty years ago, this would’ve seemed unimaginable.