This Land, Cortibah

theonewhoknocks:

just a nice reminder that in the united states you will go to jail longer for pirating music than for raping someone

hicksterlicious:

Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.

 - Mark Twain

A cursory look through many technology news articles in Australia will detail how prevalent piracy of TV shows is on our continent. In fact, let me just link a few:

 - http://tinyurl.com/d74hszq
 - http://tinyurl.com/buu9bsq
 - http://tinyurl.com/6cvpkv
 - http://tinyurl.com/c7sd6gv

So, the main story from the media companies is that piracy is canabilising their sales and pirates need to be dealt with harshly. That they can’t compete with free and that they need to track everything we do online to make sure we don’t do anything they don’t agree with.

This is absolutely fucking bullshit to put it mildly. I can say right now that you can compete with free. Let me illustrate for you.

I have a Spotify account that I pay $10 a month for. I’m happy to pay $10 a month, hell I’d probably pay $20 for the service that Spotify offers. I can stream any song on their library. And not only that, but any play lists I create on my PC automatically sync & download on my laptop, my phone, my tablet and my media PC. That is a service that I pay for and will continue to pay for and because of this I do not pirate music. Well, maybe occasionally when Spotify doesn’t have something that I want to listen to in their extensive library, but it has cut it down significantly.

On the subject of books, I do not pirate those. However, I must say that I have never pirated books to begin with, so there is that. I have bought books through Amazon & Google Play. On both these platforms, books are delivered to all my devices within seconds of me pressing a ‘buy’ button. My credit card details are all already in there and ready to go. Since the beginning of this year, when I started with a Kindle, I have spent at least several hundred dollars on e-books. It is much, much easier to buy e-books than it is to pirate them. And once again, everything syncs across all my devices. I can stop reading on my tablet, open up the ‘Play Books’ plugin on Chrome and pick up right from where I left off.

I can’t remember the last time I pirated a game. Thanks to Steam, I regularly buy PC games at resonable prices. I have a library of over 200 games. Yes, that is correct, over two hundred. I have no idea when I am ever going to play these games, but I have them none-the-less. On this platform, some games even sync my controls, my save games and various other settings across PC & Mac platforms, and soon will even offer services on Linux.

So, media companies I really want to buy content that is convenient for me. You have done pretty well with games, music and books, now I want you to sort something out for TV shows & movies. I am willing to spend the money on this system, but you actually have to make it. I can’t spend money on something that doesn’t exist. Hell, if I could pay say $50 - $60 a month for a service that gives me access to TV shows on all my devices as they release in the US I would be very willing to pay for that service. I WANT to give you my money.

But, I can’t spend my money on something that doesn’t exist.

y

zincfingers:

gigglewhatsit:

catbountry:

rooshoes:

WOW WHAT A SURPRISE.

anyone who says anti-piracy measures have helped artists is full of shit.

Ayep.

._. smooth

not surprised whatsoever

This is not the first time the labels have made a dick move or fucked artists over. This is just the first time it’s made the news.

(via maybenotboring)

Read More

anarchyagogo:

How to cut down on an enormous chunk of “illegal” downloading, and this is so absurdly simple that it boggles the mind:

• make your show / movie / whatever accessible online. 
• put ads on it so you can make money off of it, or sell a subscription to a competitive streaming service like netflix.
• make it available
• everywhere, meaning the country of origin and everywhere else
• as soon as it airs (tv shows) / becomes legally available to purchase (films &cet).  not a week and a half later, not three days later, not the next morning.  as soon as.   people who are savvy about internet downloading and things are generally going to be the sort of people who hang out online and want to talk about their favorite shows as soon as they happen with their friends who are in that timezone/country.  you’ll cut down on a shitton of downloading if you just make things available legally faster.
• square yourselves with the idea that in this age of high definition and internet streaming that seeing a film in a cinema is a premium service and should not be relied upon as a primary method of distribution.
  
  

A secret unit within Rupert Murdoch's News Corp promoted a wave of high-tech piracy, crippling competition in the Australian Pay TV market, with direct ramifications in the US and Italy.

paxamericana:

I’m no lawyer, but the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act should come in to play here, right? 

gotrocksalt:

tickle-me-misha:

riningear:

there-is-no-pumpkin:

Seriously, reblog this right now. Any of your followers can be Anonymous. Whether this is real or not, precautions are always good.

what

what do i do

crap 

so this means like downloaded music and stuff right?

I hope this isn’t true

signal boost because oh shit

(via helloemrys)

Wale: I Just Want To Make #Music & Give It To Fans For Free ... They'll Support Me

anonymissexpress:

From the new-way dept, via @AdamfromNorway

This is from a few weeks back, but I’m catching up on some older posts. We’ve been talking lately about how fans will support artists they like, and focusing on connecting with those fans by being open, human and awesome is a better strategy than freaking out about piracy.

There are lots of artists who recognize this basic formula. For example, hip hop star Wale was recently asked about things like SOPA, and he explained that he doesn’t get too involved in those things, but he just wants to make music and give it to his fans for free, knowing that they’ll support him when it comes time to buy:

I just know that I want to continue to make music and give it to the people for free and then if it’s good enough when it’s time for it to be sold they’ll go out and support it. I’m a fan of the mode that it is now…

Of course, he’s signed to Universal Music, which kinda limits his ability to give out his music for free. They don’t like that kind of thing. But it again raises questions about the claims of labels that they represent the best interests of artists. It seems like some artists have a better handle on what’s best for themselves …

More on Techdirt

As if it’s news that labels don’t represent the interests of artists. They take over 90% of an artist’s share from sales, they force artists to sign away the copyright ownership to their own songs - songs they have written and performed - and essentially try to suck all the money they can out of artists and go to all lengths to avoid actually paying the artist for what was produced. 

The problem with labels is economics, not piracy.

I’m not surprised that musicians are moving away from bigger labels. If anything, it’s a smarter decision in the long run. Otherwise, you’ll have to tour yourselves into an early grave or invest and buy up property in order to have anything at all to retire on or any decent income.

(And if other articles I’m reading are any indication, it’s not much better for directors, screenwriters, or actors either. The upside for them is that they do have groups like the Screen Actor’s Guild that they can go to for assistance if legal battles begin.)

Music Industry Mulls Suing #Google Over “Pirate” Search Results

anonymissexpress:

Ernesto, February 16, 2012

The recording industry considers filing a lawsuit against Google for allegedly abusing its dominant market position to distort the market for online music. Industry groups including IFPI and the RIAA want Google to degrade links to “pirate” websites in its search results. IFPI has obtained a “highly confidential and preliminary legal opinion” to see if they can force Google to step up its anti-piracy efforts though a lawsuit.

It’s no secret that the entertainment industries believe search engines are not delivering enough when it comes to protecting copyright works.

Two months ago the RIAA and IFPI accused Google of massively profiting from piracy and obstructing efforts of rightsholders to reduce the availability of illegal content.

Thus far, this row between Google and the entertainment industries has largely taken place behind closed doors, but a confidential document circulating among music industry executives shows that a lawsuit is also being considered.

[…]

More on TorrentFreak

/reduced to posting reaction gifs due to incoherence and loss of the ability to can

teal-deer:

As many of you are no doubt aware, there has been a recent hulabaloo over the new Sales FAQ Andrew put up. http://www.mspaintadventures.com/salesfaq.html

The main objection that people keep having here (that I see) is to the questions about selling plushies and cosplay items. People are making a stink, because they feel they should be allowed to sell these items.

I’m not going to get into the legal tangle this involves here; more intelligent, well-versed people (like NotASenator, among others) can do that far better than I can. I’d also like to make it perfectly clear that I come down on Andrew’s side here—he has every right to protect his intellectual property, and it is a tangled, tricky world. Much as I’d love to buy a plushie or a pair of troll horns, I completely understand why he has to do this. Again, it’s a tangled bunch of legal shenanigans that I won’t get into here.

But what I am going to do is look at the other side: a lot of people don’t seem to understand why people seem to feel entitled to sell stuff, why they might possibly be so upset about this. This is keeping them within the bounds of the law, right? What they were doing before was illegal, why would they want to do this? Absolutely, but the mental reasoning behind this is a lot more complicated than that.

While I do this, I’m also going to give some ethical arguments as to why you shouldn’t be selling merch, beyond the legal stuff. Not… really like philosophically ethical, but just some common sense points.

Shoving this behind a cut. Buckle yourselves in, folks, there’s a reason why the username is teal_deer.

Read More

Reblogged for truth.

Not that I agree with companies making anime swag without giving a percentage of sales to the IP owner; the anime industry is in trouble right now, and I honestly think that if you can demonstrate that there is a market they will start selling official merch outside of Japan. But because fans have filled the gap in the market, companies don’t think there was a gap to begin with. But the gap is still there; some of the third-party merch is really poor quality or stupidly overpriced. Companies can compete with their official merch if they can be shown that there’s a gap to fill.