then maybe tie the amount charged to the service speed, i dont really see it as an unfair tax though, i think it would set a precedant in law that would force corporations to change their business model and would greatly benefit our whole society, but thats just my opinion and obvioulsy not everyone is going to agree (if anyone), art shouldnt be about making money, it should be about a cultural enrichment and exchange.
Also steve, what are your thoughts on my idea for the extra £5 a month in order to upgrade the infrastructure, however this couldnt be managed by the ISPs because they would just pocket it
I edited my post to answer that after i noticed it. I fully agree the isp's couldn't be trusted with it but at the same time only BT and VM are in a position to really do anything about it.
yes, they are the only 2 really in a position, but it needs to be managed by an outside party, the outside party says what do you need to upgrade, how much is it going to cost, justify the amount its going to cost. Im not 100% sure on the best way for it to work, but money needs to be invested into the infrastructure, perhaps just cut them out the loop, use the money to create a completely new backbone, that wouldnt work, but it would be nice
I like nexxos idea, bring your own DVD-R kiosks sound awesome. Kode, if you tax everyone £2, while a nominal fee, how do you decide, which artists are owed, and how much they are owed?
like i said, have a dedicated private tracker or something, plus the money wouldnt go to the artists, it would go to the publishers, as it does with retail sales
don't trackers have that data? why not enforce something like the brits have with the TV licence? You choose to pay a flat rate of 10€ a month that will go to the companies whose IP is most downloaded and to improve the internet infrastructure (you would have priority in the use of new internet transmition technologies).... by paying this fee, parasites, like DavenPort lyons, have no legal capacity to go after you and you help improve the internet.
Because its unfair to those that dont download, however if you offered a service so that everyone can now download, it will just **** up the market, everyone will be downloading a lot more than 10Euros a months worth of content. They wouldnt be happy that way! I believe, firmly, that the price of any content that feels as if it is being violated via downloading, should reconsider its marketing options. Make it so cheap its not worth the hassle of downloading. Such as nexxo has allready said, yes i download films, but as soon as i see the same film reach the £5 price tag or lower, i snap it up, because to me its worth having the hard copy in a pretty case to sit on a wall nicely and to play in my lounge, yes i could burn it to a dvd myself but its not the same. However if they offererd a service of bring your own dvd-r kiosk and sold the dvd for 3-4£ on release, i'd happily do that, saves me having to find a torrent and download, and the wait for while it downloads. I'd much rather have it right now than in a few hours, have a good quality rip, and know its legit!
The Legal System and Common Sense I have just read most of this thread and decided to create an account and inject some Common Sense. I have worked within IT (including IT Security) for over 20 years and hold a fairly senior IT position in a Global Blue Chip Company. Firstly an Analogy, if you exceed a UK Speed Limit and are caught on Camera you may receive an NIP (Notice of Intended Prosecution) to which you must respond with the details of the driver at the time of the alleged offence. If you declare that you were not the driver then, what most people are not aware, it's down to the Police Camera Enforcement Unit to PROVE you were the driver usually by Photographic evidence. I have successfully challenged this twice in Court where they were unable to prove I was the driver although I owned the vehicle! The same applies with downloading software! My advice: If you receive such a letter alleging that you illegally downloaded software and you know that you have not done so, challenge them with a Recorded Delivery letter. Dear <Sir or Madam> or <the person the letter is from> In response to your letter dated <date> claiming that a computer connected to my internet connection provided by <ISP> downloaded on <date> a software product called <game> without permission of the copyright holder: I write to advise I did not download said software and refute the alleged copyright infringement. If you wish to pursue this matter I require a full and complete copy of all records you have to prove I, <your name> made this alleged download. Yours ..., <signature> <name>. These Companies play a numbers game and rely upon scare tactics hence they are now being investigated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. You can afford to ignore their first letter but not a Court Summons. However if it gets to Court Summons stage then unless your confident and able to deal with the Courts then you will need to engage a Solicitor, if you win the case the other side pays your Solicitors bill. Please do not pay them if YOU have not committed an illegal act. I hope this helps. Regards, IT Common Sense
That's already been tried against DavenPort Lyons, you get a letter back claiming that they are exempt from the data protection act and that they there-fore do not have to provide the requested information.
They do if you hire a sollicitor. According to law, the prosecuting party has to make all evidence available to the defence for inspection and challenge.
Challenge a Lie... DL are accusing you of a crime, DL must take you to 'Small Claims Court' where they must demonstrate to the Court that you have in fact downloading software without paying the appropriate fee to the Software Vendor. If you do not turn up to Court, they win, hence someone got fined £16,000 because she did NOT turn up to Court to dispute the alledged download. If you do turn up to Court with the Royal Mail recorded delivery slip and copy of your letter denying the alledged download and requesting proof, the Judge will look at the DL response advising that they do not need to provide proof and possibly dismiss the case there and then. A few additional words you can add to your letter to DL. 'My ISP has provided me with a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) IP Address not a Static IP, please can you provide evidence from the ISP that indeed the IP address you are stating as assigned to me has an appropriate record linking to my Computer's MAC Address.' For DL to do this they need to send a technically competent person to your home to verify the MAC address on your Network Interface Card (Network Port) on your computer. That would cost them and without a Court order you don't have to let anybody but the Police touch your computer... It would be very difficult for DL to prove anything was downloaded to any computer unless they have access to said computer. DL really don't want to go to Court because the burden of proof lies with them, Innocent til PROVEN guilty... I have succesfully sued two Solicitors firms for getting things wrong which they denied and threatened to sue me... I sued a mobile phone company for overcharging although they said they hadn't, sued retailers where they basically lied and they refunded my money before we got to Court, defended against several Small Claims cases where the seller took me to Court because I would not pay for appalling products/service. Most of you know what I'm saying, you've been there, been ripped off, so how many have said enough is enough and fought back?!?!? If you have done nothing wrong, don't pay them! Challenge a Lie...
I agree that illegally downloading or copying anything which is not allowed to be copied, is simply stealing. It's just like walking into a bookstore, scanning or taking photos of every page in a book, then walking out with your ebook. But someone can also argue, that it's the same as taking a hq photo of a picture that is for sale, and then printing the photo out on a hq photo printer on hq paper. They know they don't have the original, but it looks great, was very cheap to copy, they got what they paid for. People that are willing to pay the sticker price get the real thing, those that are willing to only pay for a hq reproduction get the copy. Not theft, just a photo. Same sort of argument, is that a carpenter can come to my home, and build a beautifull cabinet. I give him drinks, snacks, clean up after him, etc, and the whole time i'm also watching every thing he does. At the end i pay him for his services, and then i start my own business, making cabinets even better as i know all his tricks plus a couple of my own. I didn't steal his skills, i copied them = difference. At the end of the day, they can have millions of mega pc's monitoring & decrypting every bit of data that flows through the internet, but they can't stop someone from paying for the game or movie or program, taking it home, getting it verified online if neccessary before cracking it, and making 1000's of copies. They can be sold cheaply at the market, or through friends, work, whatever. You get what you pay for. Women have the same problem you know... how many times have you heard your girl say "OMG, she copied my outfit/hairdo/makeup/whatever!!! That biatch!!!" Us guys copy each other aswell, from ricing our cars to look like racecars, pimping our pc's to look like whatver, or trying to be as succesfull in business like Bill Gates or Donald Trump. We all copy something, right?
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." humans like to imitate, copy and improve on other designs, its their nature, i believe that current intellectual property laws are unrealistic and, in most cases, unfair. I think it would be wise to change copyright laws to something more natural and logic, something like: "you are allowed monopoly on this patent/IP for X years or until you reach Y% of profit over your original investment" This would keep the companies profitable and at the same time force them to bring new and improved stuff out. Please tell me if I am wrong and in what way.
That would be very nice for many people, such as consumers, even industry. But when it's you that has just released a software package, and you are trying to sell them at $50 a pop, and a month after release you notice your software available as a torrent for free download on piratez@warez dot com, your exact words would be: " mother fu......!!!!!" That being said, i don't think it will ever be possible to stop copying, and as the population increases the amount of copying will increase, and become easier to do/harder to police.
I and many many many others have said it before and I will say it again, make it easier, safer, cheaper and more convenient to buy than to pirate. You are never going to change peoples views on piracy, because they haven't physically taken anything and see it as victimless it is very hard to make them stop. Why should you spend £30 on a game for it to not work because of the DRM, when someone else downloaded it in a day or 2 so barely had to wait, and maybe didn't because it was leaked before release and they can play it flawlessly. The problem doesn't lie with the pirates, they always pirate, the problem lies with Jo(e) Average who has realised that he/she can get stuff for free and very quickly and doesn't think/realise he/she is doing anything wrong. If he/she could go out and buy a game for £10/£15 and have a nice case and know that he will be able to install it on as many PCs as he/she likes then he/she will.
then try to sell the software in a different way, make the software cheaper, sell it online for a cheaper price, cut the middle man, make 2 versions, a free one and a professional one, do $5 weekends and software packs with other nice software you, or other software creators, have... or just sue everyone and piss of lots of people
The problem is when you spend millions developing a game or a piece of software you can't afford to sell it at £15 a pop. The problem is at the end of the day we're killing the industry as it is now by showing that we're "disinterested" in it. That said you don't have to pay for TV (freeview anyway).
if you can afford to sell it at £50 with a middle man that is eating most of that, then you can afford to sell it a lot cheaper at £15 (cut the middle man and use better distribution methods), considering of course that at £15 you will sell far more copies of your software that at £50. or am i assuming to much?
Well if i develop a piece of software, make a movie, sing some songs, whatever, and i think that i can sell 5 million at $10 each, a million copies at $50 each, but only 100-200k at $100 each, etc Now lets just say that a $50 sale looks like it will give me the best return, because the manufacturing, advertising & distribution, etc costs for selling 5 million copies is around 7 times what it will cost for 1 million copies! So $50 each is going to be my selling price. Now at $10 each, maybe only 5 million people bother downloading since it's so cheap, but at $50 each, about 9 million people download it. I don't care much about that. I'm in a business, i want to make money. I'm not here to provide cheap services to every man and woman, and neither are you! Since 9 million people are downloading instead of 5 million, i have nearly double the chance of catching a piracy ring which i can then maybe sue, which would mean making even more money from my software/movie/songs. If you copied something, you can't say that "they should have just sold it alot cheaper!" Do the sums, why would they sell it so cheap unless they are a charity
