Do you people (and give a straight answer for once) favour:
-- the flood of fake and counterfeit (mostly 'Made in China' but not exclusively)? products flooding the world market ?
Products are flooding the world market because there is a demand for cheap products. I am sure you don't own made in Germany and Made in USA/Japan products but Made in China and Made in Korea/Taiwan. I at least own some expensive Japanese and American products because I am happy to pay extra for better quality but do you do that?
-- composers, artists, film directors , actors and other creative people being deprived of their rightful royalties and effectviely have their intellectual property stolen?
It's not self evident that these people have rightful royalties. Rightful royalties are a 17th century construct. There were no loyalties prior to this - instead we had folklore, folk music, folk dress, folk culture and folk customs. The world survived then. Artists had patrons or were paid per performance. Secondly most artists do not make loyalties because publishers such as Sony Music or Warner Brothers hold the copyright and enforce a cartel like monopoly with differential pricing, availability and released dates. Some products never make it outside of their borders. Artists don't get paid but middlemen do. Thirdly why should the artist be allowed to profit from an idea he stole from someone else? Most ideas are stolen from someone else. Is there really anything genuinely original ever? Most books, films, games, music is a copy of something else. Often it is pilfered from public domain. Most people get paid while they work but for some reason an artist is allowed to get paid many times over for the same thing while doing nothing new. This model seems unfair and its not self evidently true why it should be so. In fact it probably reduces innovation. Why make a new product when I can get paid for my old work, many times over? But as said, most artists aren't even that lucky.
Do you pay your plumber for the pipes he installed in your house every month? Do you have to ask him permission before you share your toilet with guests? What if you run a hotel? Do you pay a different rate and a subscription for the plumber's job? No. He worked, he got paid for it. End of story.
With the internet there is a new opportunity for artists to eliminate the middle men and sell directly to the public. Also, piracy = free advertising. It's been shown in research studies that piracy increases sales. Look at Adobe Photoshop. Look at Bill Gates, when he said that he'd prefer the Chinese pirate MS products instead of competitors'. Why? Because one day these people will decide to move to a legitimate source and guess which choice they'll choose - yes Windows, MS Office and Adobe Photoshop (the products they know). Look at the success of the Japanese animation industry because of fansubbing piracy. Japanese producers who had no intent to market to the outside world were surprised when people started buying their CDs, laserdiscs, DVDs, merchandise, clothing, etc.
The current media business is outdated and needs to either evolve or face extinction. Differential pricing, purposeful unavailability and other artificial restrictions should be done away with. Sites like iTunes, Gog.com and Crunchyroll.com have managed to find a way to make profits despite high piracy rates. These sites sell content at prices people are more willing to pay. Sadly the Media industry with the protection of state organs can get away with outdated practices because they will just legislate competition away, instead of using piracy as free advertising and selling digital downloads for a reasonable fee as soon as the product is available. Most people want to pay for things they like but sadly currently this is often impossible - product not available and will never be available in given region, or the price is too high, e.g. a CD with only one good song costs $20, while iTunes has the one good song for $1. Sadly iTunes is not available internationally. Such artificial restrictions should be done away with. DVDs, XBOX games and Blurays have region restrictions so even if you order from a foreign website you are blocked!
And if these businesses and artists et al don't want to adapt, then they should close down their business. They should no longer be in business and then there will be no more piracy on the internet. I think this option is preferable to internet policing and censorship.
-- having an 'anything goes' approach to the Internet where anonymous individuals can engage in libel with impunity (they couldn't get away with that on radio, TV or the press!) ,show how to construct bombs with household products, promote terrorism, run hate sites, glamourise incest, padophilia and zoofilia as well as many other socially despicable activities?
-- turning hackers who jeopardise the national security of countries by disabling defense and other sensitive official sites hailed as heroes and saviours?
This is false. We don't have anything goes at present. For one child prno is outlawed and prnographers are prosecuted and sent to jail. For another sites like MegaUpload which profited from piracy can and have been shut down with ACTA. Thirdly certain types of speech are illegal. Inciting violence or spreading national secrets will get you arrested. You can be found online.
National defense systems do not need (and should not) to be connected to the internet, in fact none are. What is often hacked are portals of public sites. And hacking can be prosecuted under current laws. How would you like the police to stop your car and search you every hour because somewhere someone is shoplifting? It's not necessary and it's unwelcome. Why should my freedom be held hostage because some shop is being robbed or some Hollywood publisher refuses to change his business model? There are laws against criminals already. Sites which glamorize pedophilia are being shut down and offenders arrested. It's very easy. DMCA take downs do work and copyrighted contents are taken down from file sharing sites.
ACTA has admittedly not been publicly consulted and mayl contain various snags and loopholes. But the ratification process is an extended one and all the kinks should get ironed out eventually. If not, it will not be accepted by the EP or national parliaments, so why the big stink?!
milky
Why not have a big stink? Why should only politicos be allowed to make a stink? And if ACTA does not bother you, why are you making a big stink yourself?
The copyright system needs reform. Businesses which refuse to do so, should move over to an alternative form of business. This is how capitalism works, if you don't adapt you fail. Look at all the blacksmiths and horsewhip manufacturers who went bankrupt when cars and trains came out. The internet makes distribution different and businesses have to get with it.
If I ever get caught shoplifting, I will just scream "Freedom of Speech!".
Except this is not theft. Copyright infrigement is not the same as theft. For one, theft will probably get you a suspended sentence or a fine of several thousand dollars, whereas uploading a song, when properly prosecuted (in a civil case) will get you a fine of several million dollars.
But copying is not theft. We do it all the time. Human beings by nature copy everything they see. You copy your parents and teachers and role models. We learn by copying. It's part of our nature. Theft is taking something AWAY from someone so that he no longer has it. It is a significant difference.
Intellectual properties are a new invention. In fact we can un-invent them and return to the days of patronage and actual performance art. It's not self evident why Copyright has to exist. You only think it does because you've swallowed the propaganda. But people did not have copyright for 1000s of years. They did pretty well. (But even so I don't advocate total outlawing of copyright, just sanity and fairness to what ideas and human nature/natural law really is). Also copyright these days is being perpetually extended - why? Why is Mickey Mouse still copyrighted but one can download Mozart and Chopin's sheet music and perform them in public in front of millions for profit? Sorry, something is not right about this.
When you SHARE stuff from a supermarket you REMOVE it from the supermarket. It is GONE! When you OWN a DISK you PURCHASED you should be allowed to do with it whatever you want. If you want to make a copy because technology allows it and give it to your friends, it should be your right. It is yours. The idea that there is a separation between the content of the CD and the CD itself is a modern day absurdity. No ancient person in first century AD or ancient Greece or Rome would believe this.
Only way copyright can be theft if you take a work and pretend it is yours, copy it and sell it for profit while the purchasers think they are buying originals or if you take the original work and destroy all the copies the copyright holder has. It cannot be theft otherwise. You are not getting the equivalent of an original when you make a copy.
Finally appeals to sheriffs don't make sense. Sheriffs do not create the law. They are not authorities on the subject.
Civic psychology = yes and we should obey Hitler, Stalin etc too. Yes they were all legal. They were the authorities. In a democracy people rule and unfair laws have to be changed. And if that leads to loss of money for some, then that's just too bad.
