What happens if MGM wins?
p2pnet.net News View:- What happens if the the Supremes rule for MGM, the euphemism for the entertainment industry and its fellows in the Supreme Court case which lifted off on March 29? asks Bill Evans in a p2pnet Reader`s Write.
If they go that way, then the US is on a slippery slope, he says.
That can only lead us down the road to destruction.
Can Ford be sued if a vehicle they made is used by a madman to run down a group of children. Knowing it could happen would be enough.
What about cameras? Can Nikon, Minolta, Canon, be sued because their products can be used to photograph copyrighted works, or trademarked properties?
The list goes on..
“Could an inmate sue a soap manufacturer if he drops the soap in the shower and gets the prison version of hide the ******?
What if I take a Loiusville Slugger baseball bat and beat the crap out of my next door neighbor? Should he sue me or Louisville slugger?
Should you be able to sue the farmer who raised the cow that went into the McDonalds burger that made you fat? (never mind the fact you ate 10 a day for 6 months)?
Well, should you?
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
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March 31st, 2005 at 6:44 pm
Who cares ?
Listen most people have bigger worries that getting into the moral and legal implications about redistributing copyrighted music on the internet.
I am over forty years old and computers are my hobby and i have three computers.
But my main focus in life is centered around just trying to make a living paying my bills and having enough money to buy lunch.
Most of these questions about file sharing in the bigger percentage evolves around teenagers who often don’t have any sense of what right or wrong is about the implications involved about redistributing copymaterial regardless of what side of the issue people are on.
EVEN IF THE SUPREME COURT DECIDES THAT THE TWO SOFTWARE COMPANIES INVOLVED CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR CUSTOMERS ACTIONS THAT WILL NOT STOP THE RIAA AND THE MPAA FROM SUING PEOPLE FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.
THAT’S PROBABLY WHAT THE COURT WILL RULE.
THE MPAA AND THE RIAA ‘S LEGAL PETITION WILL PROBOBALY WILL GET THROWN OUT OF COURT.
BESIDES PEOPLE MAY BE BETTER OFF TO BUY THE CD AND MAKE LEGAL COPIES OF THEM WITH THE COMPUTER.
i have over 800 – 900 cds not including boxsets and movies AND I BACK UP EVERYTHING I OWN INCLUDING MY COLLECTION OF CSS ENCODED MOVIES.
I use slysoft and dvd decrypter and dvd shrink all of the time and THERE IS NOTHING THE MPAA CAN DO ABOUT IT IN THE PRIVACY OF MY OWN HOME.
IT’S A LOT CHEAPER THAN GETTING SUED.
March 31st, 2005 at 8:11 pm
“But my main focus in life is centered around just trying to make a living paying my bills and having enough money to buy lunch.”
I’m 22 years old, and I’m in the same boat. I own a house and have a fulltime job and i’m also a student.
I care for the following couple of reason.
1) entertainment is way overpriced. I work harder than any CEO of any of those companies, and I get paid in a year what they make in a month. I appreciate talent, but what makes an actor (whose main job is to lie and look believable) worth that 20 million to do a movie. If they paid them $100,000 a year, a very good salary in my mind, the overall budget price of the movie would go down incredibly, and they could underprice the ticket and the DVD. Why are there so many celebrity scandals? It’s because these people have way too much money and time on their hands. If I had 20 million in the bank, and only worked 6 months out of the year, I bet I’d be picking up hookers and snorting blow left and right. Sounds like the life to me.
2) People with money shouldn’t be able to control everything. This lawsuit is so blanketed, that I could get in trouble for setting up a wireless Ad-Hoc network in my neighborhood. If I’m not making damn sure no one is sharing files in the entire thing, I’m liable for whatever problems some prick 4 streets over, who I don’t even know, is doing. The internet as we know it could change over this. Http can be used for distributing copyrighted material, so who’s to say that they won’t try to change that standard. Imagine waking up to that one.
3) Laws in the U.S. are becoming less and less targeted at the people who actually did the crimes. It’s becoming the enablers fault. When I worked in the restaurant industry as a server, I constantly had to watch people’s intake of alcohol. Why? Well, if I served someone too much alcohol, and they left and got behind the wheel and killed someone, my restaurant is liable. Know what that means? My restaurant gets sued, I get fired and a bunch of people’s lives get more difficult to live. All because one douche drank too much and drove. My question is, if you don’t commit the crime, why are you being held liable? It’s that “not my problem” attitude that everyone has that turns good things into bad. People need to speak up for others regardless if they are involved or not. We’re all in this together.
4) “THERE IS NOTHING THE MPAA CAN DO ABOUT IT IN THE PRIVACY OF MY OWN HOME.” WRONG! Let’s say for a minute that somehow you become suspect of a crime. A search warrant is executed on your home, and your 3 computers are taken for further inspection. Regardless of what the original reason for the warrant is, your now in hot water because you violated the DMCA or DCMA (can’t remember the order of that acronym) in copying those DVDs. BAM! The privacy of your home is no longer private and your in some deep shit. If you have a good lawyer, you’ll get off on fair use, but still, that’s money out of your pocket. It’s the same crap that goes with the drug war. If the US government gets involved, we’ll spend more money on something we can’t fix. We’ve had a drug war for years now, and I’m still smoking pot. I can’t go to the store and pay for it, and have the knowledge that the money is going to a good source. I have to hide from cops, arrange meetings, act like i’m in Miami Vice, and on top of it, my money is probably going to murderers and plain screwed up people. Who’s going to gain the most profit from this situation with the MGM Grokster. Blackmarket will. The blackmarket keeps going and going, regardless of what you put up in it’s place. So instead of those damn teenagers swapping songs with other teenagers, it’ll turn into someone like yourself, with 900CDs, seeing the profit, and selling MP3 cds to someone else, who sells them to someone else, who sells them to someone else. So instead of it just being a free casual thing, now it’s a new source of income for lowlifes! Who is going to have those 900CDs who will do that? Drug Dealers and Thieves. CDs to them are like nothing. If you could rip them into MP3s and cram 500 songs on a disk and sell it for $10, you’ve got quite a market on your hands, especially if free downloading goes buhbye.
5) Goodbye open source server products. Open Source will take a hit because they don’t make that much money to begin with, not to mention the fact that they aren’t big on copyrights. Why should they have to withhold source code and binaries just because someone can share a song with it?
The points go on and on, maybe i’ll comment more later, but a who cares attitude makes things worse for everyone. You’ll reconsider your opinion when a whole bunch of things dissappear overnight, or it becomes such a hassle to do anything on the internet. Or when those intelligent chips silently make their way into the hardware and your computers start to go “Wait a minute, this isn’t in the proper format, I’m sorry, I cannot play this. I’ll delete it for you just so you don’t get sued” and bye bye precious data. Looks like you’ll have to buy those 900 Cds again if they get stolen, or if CD players go the way of the dinosaur and your only CD player breaks.
March 31st, 2005 at 8:33 pm
Wow, doesn’t that statement look familiar.
reference –
Replies to story #4369 – “MGM v Grokster ruling -”
Anonymous wrote
” As to say there are more important issues involved in life that are more important than The trivial arguments people argue about the morality of whether or not an individual has the right to redistribute copyrighted material.
Most people are concerned about a roof over their head and eating.
Most people are interested about their jobs their house and car payments and how they plan to send their kids to college.
People are more concerned about their taxes being too high the price of gas being too high the rising crime rate and public safety and welfare issues.
Most of the argument surrounding the p2p issue centers around in a larger percentage to younger people.
MOST MIDDLE AGED PEOPLE DON’T CARE ABOUT THESE ISSUES. ”
I WAS going to reply to this joker again, ( I am 43 and DO care
a great deal ), but some savvy 22 year old said it so much better
than I could ever hope to. Gives middle aged farts like me a little
hope for the future. Thanks mate.
Dreddsnik
Member
boycott-riaa.com
March 31st, 2005 at 11:15 pm
Buddy, you’re on a message board for the discussion of p2p. people come to this message board because they care about p2p. you don’t have to care, but i’m suprised that you’ve taken the time to come here and write about not caring. that is like going to a baseball message board and writing “who care if the sox win the world series?” or a political message board and writing “who cares if bush paid journalists to shill for him?” it matters to the people on the board. that is why the board formed in the first place.
from the looks of it, you should go to a board with discussions of bill-paying or other “bigger worries.”
cheers.
April 1st, 2005 at 12:00 am
“(But my main focus in life is centered around just trying to make a living paying my bills and having enough money to buy lunch.)
“I’m 22 years old, and I’m in the same boat. I own a house and have a fulltime job and i’m also a student.”
You’re 22 years old and own a house?
Then you are not in the same boat as any 22 year old I know.
Even the house was inherited or you live in any area where housing is cheap you’re still richer than the average 22 year old.
April 1st, 2005 at 1:44 am
A very famous principal which goes back to the begining of civilization.
“I do this and I get the desired result”. However, whater “this” is will affect any number of other “things” in ways which I could not possibly imagine.
Look at it from the entertainment industy’s perspective back at the Betamax case: “We have to stop these people making VCRs or we’re finished!
>> Fast Forward
“P2P will hurt our DVD sales. We have to stop it!”
Hang on a second. Where did DVDs come from? They are an evolution of the VCR.
“Gee damn, we tried to stop these pirates and now we have a multi-BILLION dollar industry selling the stuff we tried to ban”.
Nobody can say for sure what the future will hold, but people in the entertainment industry could at least try to take a guess, and loose the knee-jerk reaction to every single thing that MIGHT hurt their bottom line. What did they think was going to happen? Evetything would just continue the way it is?
These are supposedly creative people. Why can’t they come up with a creative solution to this “problem”?