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Is bootlegging really so bad?
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Maybe it was my terminology. I can be kind of clunky with language at times. The reason I called them bootlegs, is because my friend burned unauthorized copies and gave them to me. To my mind that is a bootleg.
I agree once exchange of money enters into the deal, it is a whole different ball of wax.
However, it is the monied pirating that is never going away. All the anti-piracy measures by software makers will only really prevent what I described above, not those mercenary enough figure a way to make a buck off the deal.
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[Clint Wardlow] “However, it is the monied pirating that is never going away. All the anti-piracy measures by software makers will only really prevent what I described above, not those mercenary enough figure a way to make a buck off the deal.”
And you can choose your role in it.
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[Mark Suszko] “Piracy on the excuse that the victims can afford the parasitism doesn’t strike me as all that noble an argument.”
Do you have a number on how much money, say, lead architect Randy Ubillos lost due to a pirated copy of Final Cut Pro 2?
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I’ll stand by my own quote. Saying parasitism is okay, “because the victim didn’t feel it” doesn’t change the leech into a butterfly. There are any number of crimes, high and low, where that defense has been tried and rejected. I think it’s more the “criminal” trying to convince themselves they aren’t guilty, or are somehow less guilty, rather than about convincing others. But rationalize it any way you want. I sleep just fine.
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[Mark Suszko] ” Saying parasitism is okay, “because the victim didn’t feel it” doesn’t change the leech into a butterfly”
The question isn’t, “Should copyright infringement be considered morally okay.” The question was, “Is copyright infringement really that bad.” I’d put emphasis on the really.
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I don’t know what age you an Clint are, but I suspect we are from different generations. I’m going to make the generalization that Millenials as a group tend to share the Chinese approach to copyright, patent, and IP law.
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Gary,
I am quite curious as to whether you have ever registered any copyrights.
Tim
Tim
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I suspect I am older than you. And in terms of copyright law…I think militant observation to the degree it exists is relatively new. When I was a younger, during the heyday of affordable audio tape machines, folks thought nothing of copying a friends albums to cassette or making mix tapes.
Technically such activities were illegal, but it was only when commercial ventures used such did the lawyers step in. (It was amazing how hardcore Mattel came down on “the Karen Carpenter Story” and the artist who was making the “trailer-trash” Barbie Dolls.)Also during the early days of consumer videotape, the big guys did introduce macrovision to prevent folks from making copies of the movies they purchased.
In a lot of ways, with the birth of disk software, folks didn’t really give much thought to making copies for friends. I think it is in the last decade with the computer generation and the ease in which one can provide such things that folks started really looking at it.
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[TImothy Auld] “I am quite curious as to whether you have ever registered any copyrights.”
And I am curious, Tim. Have you ever really worked hard on creating a project, only to sell it to someone who buries it. Make it so you can’t show or release your own work.
I had a friend who made a movie in the 1990s, his first feature. He basically was bamboozled by a fast-talking distributor against future profits. Said distributor buried the film as a tax write off. My friend lost everything he and his investors has sunk into. To this day he can’t show the film because he doesn’t hold the copyright. His labor of love just sits on some film library shelf going nowhere.
I wonder how many green film-makers have suffered such a fate? Copyright can work against the artist sometimes, especially one who can’t afford lawyers to insure he gets the best deal.
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[Clint Wardlow] “Copyright can work against the artist sometimes, especially one who can’t afford lawyers to insure he gets the best deal.”
Well said. That’s why this is not a black and white issue.
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David Lawrence
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