Whatever makes you sleep better at night.
I'm not saying it isn't wrong. I'm attempting to ensure the correct term is being applied.
Stealing Trek Literature
- Thread starter Scott Pearson
- Start date
I'm not saying it isn't wrong. I'm attempting to ensure the correct term is being applied.
I hadn't thought of it that way. Very good observation and probably explains why it has worked this way in the past. However I would argue that due to the evolving technologies whether thats someone recording the show and sticking it on the internet, or the fact that within 12 months we are going to see proper internet tv (google tv?) that will operate worldwide, the production companies will just have to accept that they will no longer be able to work this way, and if they want to deter piracy, the quicker they change the better.
I whole heartedly and humbly apologise. I feel awful for coming across as a bigot.
The only defence I can offer is I had not realised that:
A) It worked in reverse and that americans faced delays watching uk programs.
and
B) That anything produced in the uk was actually watched by anyone in america, or outside of the uk at all.
I'd forgotten about doctor who/torchwood and apart from them have no reason to turn on BBC or ITV as I consider most programs on them rubbish. Eastenders, corrie, emmerdale seems to be the only trash ever on. I guess I felt victimised because the majority of programs I watch are american and therefore the delays effect me week in week out.
Am I the only one to see the contradiction here?
I read it as an intentional contradiction, an illustration of his point.
I have to say again that this thread has been fantastic for showing all of the sides of the argument. Your points about the publishers are well made.
I would like to put the following to you however BillJ:
A part of your argument has been that an author/publisher can do whatever they want because if you don't like it don't buy it. I can take that on board but when they go to far is when they say either buy it in paper form or don't buy it at all. I believe the Harry Potter author J K Rowling resisted for a long time digital formats. She thought ebooks were evil and people who read books in this format were offensive to her. Your argument would be that it's her book so she can do what she wants.
I would have loved to have made the point to her that in the past nuclear submariners would go on deployment for 6 months at a time, with only enough room for a handful of books between the whole crew. Nowadays with ereaders and ebooks they potentially can read any book they want and never run out. Perhaps someone made a simlar point to her and this is why she backed down.
But when an author/publisher refuses to offer me the book I want in digital format I say sod you then and I'm going to download it off of the internet.
It is no longer a small number of people who think this way. The ebook market is growing fast and surely it doesn't make good business sense to not listen to a large proportion of your customer base when they say that you are selling your product wrong. Because when it comes to digital content they now have an alternative to giving you their money if you piss them off. They can go on the internet and download it for free.
I firmly believe that the way to beat piracy is to make the offenders a small minority. If there aren't many people doing something that is considered wrong then you can target them easier and if people are being succesfully punished then less and less will do it. Also pirates make their money from advertising so the less people using them, the less companies will be interested in paying them money.
But that is impossible at the moment as everyone and their uncle does it. There are too many people downloading to stop it. But a large portion of those offenders are doing it because there is no alternative service to get their digital content the way they want it. I believe that throws the responsibility back into the court of the content providers to do better.
TV shows are made to sell advertising space and premium advertising windows can be different in the various timezones. For example, a movie or TV show suited to winter-themed advertisements in the USA would be totally out of place in the Australian market. (There's nothing more ludicrous that seeing the Halloween or Christmas episode of a TV sitcom at Easter time, but it happens often.)
The US TV season starts in September, but the Australian TV season starts in February. While the USA has a "sweeps week", we have our biggest ratings grab in early December, when all the soap operas leave us on cliffhangers for the summer. Australia has tried to keep pace with shows like "Lost" and "Survivor", by airing important US episodes only a few hours after their US premiere, in an attempt to prevent illegal downloading or people spoilerizing themselves on websites, but it plays absolute havoc with our regular TV viewing. Similarly, DVDs are released in different months around the world to suit the timezones and promotional opportunities.
The other reason for staggering world premieres of motion pictures and DVDs is so the stars can be shipped around the world to promote them. Simultaneous international premieres are extremely difficult to organize.
^ I hadn't considered any of those points. I feel quite silly now. But I would suggest that due to globalisation brought about by the evolution of the internet, and the coming of internet tv, the current model is out of date and will have to change. I don't have the answer to what it changes to, but the crux of the matter is how advertising is going to work in the future, as its current form is the reason that publishers, producers etc. are trying to cling on to the past.
We'll soon be at a place where ratings can be measured exactly, so 'sweeps' will no longer matter (the UK has never had such a thing anyway).
Also "TV shows are made to sell advertising space" is bloody bleak isn't it? I mean some clearly are but I like to think some are more about artistic endeavour with advertising being a necessary evil to fund them. I think we'll increasingly see the good drama shows moving to an a la carte system where people pay for the shows they want to see.
Likewise scheduling issues will be a thing of the past. My parents can't even use a computer properly but even they love their Tivo-like box.
TV and books are just hitting this thing now. Film is in the middle of it. Music has been there and done that. It always goes this way:
Pirates offer a product either before or in a superior form to that which is offered officially.
Distributors try through legislation and legal and technical efforts to stop the pirates.
Eventually distributors realise that instead of trying to stop the pirates, they could offer a superior service to that of the pirates, and customers come running back.
Morally dubious for sure, but that's how it goes. But yeah if the tiny little book industry thinks it can succeed where the huge film and music industries failed then more power to it.
Alright. We've come circle as I've already addressed this response and why it's not the only viable choice any longer, nor is it a stance that serve the artists in the end which is what this should ultimately be about. So, here's what I take away from this discussion with you:
1. You seem to think the publisher bears no responsibility to be an equitable partner with author and consumer and the principal of caveat emptor should rule the day. Whatever a business can do to maximize it's profits regardless of the negative effects to the artist or the consumer or the entire process be damned.
2. If a consumer doesn't like some of these profit-driven tactics by publishers, they should simply not support the publisher, and by extension, the artists that they really wanted to support in the first place and just do without the art that is being introduced into our culture.
3. If an artist doesn't like the practices, they can try and seek some alternative distribution path or just swallow their integrity and go with the publisher. Fortunately for the artists, the advent of digital media and the internet is rapidly making this problem less and less of an issue every day.
In regards to your stances then: Let's just say I'm glad that's not the world we actually live in and that technology is forcing big businesses to rethink some of their decisions and hopefully swing some of the dollar back to the artists where it belongs.
I sincerely don't understand why you keep repeating this mantra as if someone disagrees with you. I'm certainly not condoning theft. I'm simply pointing out that technology has opened some doors in our culture that is forcing big businesses to acquiesce and meet the consumer half way like ITunes has shown recently and that the middle man is just as responsible for their actions and this mess as those who are choosing to illegally download stuff, especially when it's readily available for purchase.
I disagree that "publishers, producers etc. are trying to cling on to the past". All publishers are researching, testing, experimenting, spying on each other, re the eBook and digital revolutions, trying to come up with models that might work in the future, but which don't necessarily trample over their clients' rights. If they jump too early, they are only dealing with early adopters, ie. those consumers who have a very different way of interacting with new information communication technologies than the rest of the general populace.
Then you can express your displeasure by simply not buying from said publisher. It still doesn't make theft okay for something that isn't essential to your daily life.
Bill, I don't disagree with you. I hate piracy. I very much want and try to support the artists, writers and creatives that make the things I love. I do torrent TV shows (not Star Trek- I paid for all of that on DVD), which is a breach of copyright, but I would never torrent music, films or books, and I actively discourage my friends from doing so.
But even though I agree that it's morally wrong, it doesn't matter. We are the last of a dying breed. If you took a serf from a monarchy to America and showed them how everyone simply expected freedom as an inalienable right, he might say: "But surely the king has the moral right to rule us?" and we'd all chuckle at how wrong his worldview was. Well free, unlimited access to music, TV, films, that's all considered an inalienable right by any young person you care to ask. We can all say: "Theft is theft is theft." until we're blue in the face, and many are doing this- but within a generation no-one is going to be saying that- the reality will simply be (and is now, for all intents and purposes) that if something can be digitized, it can and will be available for anyone to get, for free. 10 billion may sound like a lot of iTunes sales, and it is! And it's great that some people are paying for their music- I love iTunes and use it almost every day to get music. But it's a drop in the bucket to the amount of music being copied between people for free. It really is. And the bucket is only going to get bigger.
The genie is out of the bottle and barring some sort of cataclysm that knocks the western world off of it's axis, it ain't going back in anytime soon. No law or piece of DRM tech is going to stop the way the culture is shifting.
That's how I live when it comes to books/movies/TV shows.
I'm certainly not going to disagree with this. But to me this still doesn't even begin to give anyone anything even resembling something even the tiniest bit close to stealing books/movies/TV shows. I'll be honest when it comes to this stuff I really wish we could just go Big Brother on their asses and track down everyone who does it and either fine them or stick then in jail for a couple months. It would be a great way to get the government all the money they desperately need.
(Don't let the smilie fool you, I'm completely serious here.)I'm certainly not going to disagree with this. But to me this still doesn't even begin to give anyone anything even resembling something even the tiniest bit close to stealing books/movies/TV shows. I'll be honest when it comes to this stuff I really wish we could just go Big Brother on their asses and track down everyone who does it and either fine them or stick then in jail for a couple months. It would be a great way to get the government all the money they desperately need.
Do we start with you because of the copyright infringement in your avatar?
Is it? I thought if something was posted as promotional material it was free for anyone to use? And besides I was talking about people downloading whole things, it doesn't bother me if it's just clips. Yeah, I know it's an abitrary line, but it's my line, and I don't give a crap if it makes sense or not.
So, let me ask you a few questions.........(and anyone else can feel free to pitch in here.....they're really more philosophical at this point then directed at any one individual.)
Why are you so serious about upholding these specific laws? Is it because that they are laws and all laws should be upheld?
Or are you not as concerned about the legality of the issue itself as much as you are what who the law is trying to protect and you want to make sure that the artist who created it is fairly compensated?
Are you equally concerned about upholding all laws including speeding, jaywalking, etc, etc regardless of how trivial the law is or is it really just which laws make the most sense to you?
^To me it's more about the fact that I'm stealing from the people who worked hard to make whatever it is that I'm downloading. I do support following the law and have never purposefully broken a law, but I'm not someone who's totally anal about everyone always following the letter of every single tiny little law. When it comes to watching movies/tv shows/reading books, I follow what goes into making all of those, and I care very much about the people who made them getting paid what they deserve for the hard work they put into those productions. When you download something illegally you are preventing those people from getting that money they earned, and that is what I don't like. I was a huge supporter of the WGA strike a few years back, despite what it did to the TV industry.
Like I said, before though, I don't really see where it would be a big deal if people watch clips, I've watched plenty of clips online (although probably about 90% of them are posted legally on sites like IGN, Yahoo, or Apple movies). My main issues is when people download whole episodes, movies or books. But I am willing to knowledge that it can get to be an issue when you try to decide where to draw a line.
Like I said, before though, I don't really see where it would be a big deal if people watch clips, I've watched plenty of clips online (although probably about 90% of them are posted legally on sites like IGN, Yahoo, or Apple movies). My main issues is when people download whole episodes, movies or books. But I am willing to knowledge that it can get to be an issue when you try to decide where to draw a line.
What about the show logos? What kind of stuff would be considered fair use for avatars? Anything? I only ask because if there is stuff I can use under fair use, I'll change it.
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The studios use their registered trademark show logos to brand their own material, so no. They might argue that readers of the BBS were mistaking your logo avatar on posts to be a mark of official CBS opinion. (Although highly unlikely.)
Well, something artistic that you own would be safer. For example, I use one of several photos of me dressed as an Andorian, a customized action figure (or Bobblehead) of an Andorian, or a friend's illustration of me as an Andorian, which I commissioned for a fanzine in 1980 - and sought additional permission in 2001 to keep using it on the Internet.
Or you could write to an actor and ask permission.
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