11 ms·

Obama Administration Announces Massive Piracy Crackdown

63 points by mikebo 16y ago

techiferous 16y ago
How is music piracy different than the following scenario: (1) I quit my day job and decide to launch a web-based startup. (2) I base my business plan on a monthly subscription model. (3) I achieve product/market fit and revenue starts coming in. (4) A technology emerges that magically makes it easy to copy my SaaS app and use it in its entirety without paying the monthly subscription. (5) My revenue plummets and I have to completely revamp my business model or go out of business. This is not a rhetorical question. I honestly want to know what is the difference. Thanks!
- nkassis 16y ago
  In the case of the Saas app, I think there is usually more to it that can't easily be replicated. For example, while Google email service is very Simialar to what was previously out there, they offer things like large space, reliable (don't laugh) service, trusted branding etc. Other providers offer quick development of new feature which a copied service can't easily replicate. This is the key, replicability (that's not a word ;p ) or lack of is your protection. In the end, you can't sit and wait. Even if they don't copy your app, others will offer similar products ( I think this is fair and square) and you will die if you don't continue to provide more to the user. Ubuntu One is a open source version of dropbox. I don't think dropbox will die because of it. Dropbox hosts the service and offers good support and feature development. Ubuntu's offering might not be as good. Even if it is, Competition is everywhere.
- abstractbill 16y ago
  Assuming your technology #4 really could be created, I don't this is much different from musical piracy. And I'd be just as ok with this as I am with things like peer-to-peer networks existing. Such a technology would be awesome - as you said, it would appear to be magic. And it would be my problem to come up with a new business model, not to outlaw a piece of new technology.
  - chwahoo 16y ago
    Copying things has existed for a while (although it was never as easy as it is now). We chose to develop copyright despite this because we wanted to promote creation of works like books and music. I don't necessarily disagree with your larger point, but It's worth noting that copyright was created for exactly this purpose (limit distribution of something that would be easy for copiers to distribute, but hard for them to originate). I suspect copyright is one of the driving forces in the existence of lots of the information and entertainment I enjoy consuming on a day-to-day basis, so I'm skeptical of tossing it out completely.
    - pyre 16y ago
      Copyrights, trademarks, and patents also weren't as complex and over-bearing when they were first created as they are today. If anything, the content industries only have themselves to blame with their egregious extensions to copyright terms amongst other things. I don't think there would necessarily be the same 'tear it all down' mentality around (for example) copyright if it wasn't: 1) overly abused and 2) a ridiculous length of time. It also doesn't help that a lot of people feel entitled to copyright, when in reality it is a monopoly granted by the people, not some sort of 'God-given' right.
      - nailer 16y ago
        I feel entitled to copyright on what I make. Don't you? I make something, I determine the price and distribution. You have the right not to buy it.
        pyre 16y ago
        Copyright is not a basic human right. You may like that you have copyright on what you make, but to claim ownership over ideas is like trying to grab a handful of water. Also, please don't try to frame this argument as, "If you are against copyright then you must be a pirate!" Please let McCarthy-ism stay dead. Since you've consistently posted in favour of copyright recently: * Do you feel the *need* to have copyright 90 years after you are dead? Is that your only incentive to create? * What about retroactive copyright extensions? Are you planning on 'un-creating' things that you created in the past because you weren't retroactively granted a copyright extension so you now have no incentive to create something that you already created? If copyright terms were 14 years long (IIRC like they were originally), I think people wouldn't have such an issue. The fact that black & white films like Steamboat Willie are sill under copyright long after anyone can make any significant amount of money off of them is a travesty. This is especially true because a lot of things that are under copyright have become part of our culture (the 'Happy Birthday song' anyone?).
- alexkay 16y ago
  Some companies manage to base their SaaS business on free software. Take for example Gitorious, their entire code base is released under AGPL. If something can be copied, it will be, that's the law of nature. Your business plan should take this into account.
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    How is Gitorious making money? Everything I saw on google said they don't even have a business model. If so it's hardly a good example of what all people who would like to make money from what they're good at (writing software) should be doing.
    - alexkay 16y ago
      > How is Gitorious making money? By offering commercial support and custom instalations, see for example http://blog.gitorious.org/2009/05/11/welcome-qt/ http://blog.gitorious.org/2009/05/11/welcome-qt/
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  "A technology emerges that magically makes it easy to copy my SaaS app and use it in its entirety without paying the monthly subscription." Before such technology existed it would make sense to pursue such a business plan. But suppose such technology already exists, and you know it. It would be sort of foolish to plan a business that assumed such technology would not be used. Now suppose that this magic technology was not invented for the purpose of copying SaaS apps, but was an inevitable side-effect of other good, useful, desirable technologies. A side-effect of the technology that allowed you to build your SaaS app in the first place. Oh, and your app helped shut down other existing businesses that were not using this new technology. That it can copy your site is simply one of a million things it can do. Do you fight this technology? Freeze it? Criminalize it? One of my gripes with the IP industrial complex is that there are companies that lucked out on a transitory scarcity because of a particular stage of technological evolution. Tools existed for mass-producing physical copies and transmitting virtual copies across large distances (i.e tape and CD production, and radio/TV), but there were still sufficient financial and technical barriers to constrain its application. These businesses were based on the assumption that cheap reproduction and mass data transfer would never become so cheap or so easy that just about anyone could do it with the push of a button. Bad assumption. And now the cat's out of the bag.
- marilyn 16y ago
  The RIAA and MPAA do need to revamp their business model if they want to evolve into the future with the rest of us. I often wonder why the movie and music industries don't embrace torrent technology. I would definitely pay a reasonable monthly fee to access legitimate and legal trackers that they manage. It's really win-win as far as I can see. Watch what you want when you wants, and the distributions costs drop to next to nothing.
- keefe 16y ago
  They have money to fill great convoys of dumptrucks and you have nothing? This is not a joke, it's the reality. If you managed to scrape enough money together to have power in the world, you could start playing power games too. We need to address this with a decentralized system they can't crack down on.
nearestneighbor 16y ago
> which allows the government to charge people who they think might be about to infringe with a civil offense (for example if you searched "torrent daft punk"). I find this difficult to believe.
- nkassis 16y ago
  I think other sources will be needed before anyone can pass a good judgment on this news. Making the thought that leads to something criminal criminal, how does that prove you did do something criminal? or is the thought criminal? Searching for something illegal is criminal? I'm confused by this and I hope more details emerge. In the DRM case. If by-passing DRM because criminal, well... I'll be in for some long time in jail. Using Linux to watch DVDs. This is by far the best example of victimless crime I know. Who did this cost any money too? Was the hack of subverting my computer illegal? That could lead to some interesting new ways to prosecute a person whenever needed. As for copying, I don't condone it but whats a legal alternative that offers at least the minimum amount of freedom offered by the pirate option? iTunes and Amazon MP3 proved that DRM wasn't required for good sales. They truly offer the freedom to use the media as you want. There not a lot of reasons to be pirating music anymore. Movies, that's another story.
- amalcon 16y ago
  Not as difficult as this: The bill would make P2P or BitTorrent client development a criminal offense if the distributed software was used for infringement. UDP is peer-to-peer technology, in every sense of the term (there's no implementation-level difference between the client and server). Is everyone who produces an implementation of UDP going to be in potential violation of this measure? Either this thing's being massively exaggerated, the people who wrote the law have absolutely no understanding of communications technology, or (more likely) something in between.
  - pyre 16y ago
    Even worse: > The bill would make P2P or BitTorrent client > development a criminal offense if the distributed > software was used for infringement. So if someone uses Skype voice or chat to coordinate the downloading and/or distribution of copyrighted material, could Skype have been 'used for infringement' (it's already a p2p app)? What about people peering Android and/or iOS devices together and sharing files?
henning 16y ago
Piracy is not theft.
- pmccool 16y ago
  More to the point, illicit downloading is not piracy. Equating downloading with armed robbery(or worse) at sea is silly.
  - spudlyo 16y ago
    It's the kind non-nuanced thinking I've come to expect from Biden.
    - aaronbrethorst 16y ago
      Yeah, Palin would've offered much more nuanced commentary.
      - jokermatt999 16y ago
        Just because Palin would be worse doesn't mean that we can't acknowledge the fact that Biden could be much better than he is now.
  - JesseAldridge 16y ago
    Many words in the English language have multiple meanings. "Piracy" is one of them. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piracy http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piracy
  - swombat 16y ago
    Pirates are cool. I say, let's keep calling it piracy.
- davidmurphy 16y ago
  I respectfully disagree. Users used to pirate the software my first startup made, and that was not fun.
itistoday 16y ago
Just another symptom of living in an idiocracy. This situation will work well for the for-profit prisons in the United States, who, like the for-profit health insurance companies, make a profit off of people's misery, and will ensure that America remains #1 in persons incarcerated: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/the-high-budgetary-cost-of-incarceration/ http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/the-high-... Thankfully, the article does point out the discrepancies in Biden's claims: Interestingly, the statements seem to fly in the face of a recent Government Accountability Office study released to U.S. Congress earlier this year, which concluded that there is virtually no evidence for the claimed million dollar losses by the entertainment industry. That study suggested that piracy could even benefit the economy. Nevermind facts, we don't care if the evidence suggests that piracy helps the economy, or whether Biden's metaphor is a metaphor and not a substitute for reality, or whether that drug you're taking is not only safe, but healthy, we're still going to toss your ass in jail, or give you a fine you'll spend the rest of your life dealing with. Ars Technica did a great job thoroughly debunking the claims of the RIAA and MPAA: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/10/dodgy-digits-behind-the-war-on-piracy.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/10/dodgy-digits... And here's their take on the referenced government study: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/us-government-finally-admits-most-piracy-estimates-are-bogus.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/us-governmen... But in this country, facts don't really have much weight when it comes to policy making. The irony of all of this is that like the War on Drugs, instead of keeping people safe and happy, this coming War on Piracy will only serve as a drain on America's economy and morale, and yes, could even result in the creation of a dangerous black market. Tax dollars flushed down the toilet for the purpose of spreading misery and soothing the irrational fears of an aging and nervous minority of rich people.
- JesseAldridge 16y ago
  If you actually read the summary of the linked GAO paper[1], you can see that the authors of this attack piece misrepresented it. Some choice quotes that they neglected to include: "Negative effects on U.S. industry may include lost sales, lost brand value, and reduced incentives to innovate", "The U.S. economy as a whole may grow more slowly because of reduced innovation and loss of trade revenue", "research in specific industries suggest that the problem is sizeable" Basically, the report says that piracy has some bad and some good effects, but these effects are extremely difficult to quantify due to the illicit nature of piracy. Nonetheless, piracy is probably a significant problem. As it becomes easier for people to get stuff without paying for it, production of said stuff will drop. It's common sense, people. [1] http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-423 http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-423
rchi 16y ago
I doubt that Obama (with his intellect) genuinely believes that this policy will help the economy at all. Disappointing on so many levels.
- djcapelis 16y ago
  Why do you think smart people can't make stupid decisions now and again? I doubt he's getting full and accurate data and I doubt he's really had time to spend on the issue that this needs given the other major issues that need to be dealt with.
  - edanm 16y ago
    You know, there's the off chance that: 1. He is smart. 2. As the President of the United States, he is getting all the data he needs. 3. You're the one who's wrong. I'm not saying it's necessarily true, but it sounds a little funny to say "yeah he's either stupid or ignorant" about someone who is very likely neither. It's possible he just disagrees with you, despite being smart and knowledgeable.
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      It doesn't have to be one of: a) Stupid b) Ignorant c) Wrong It is most likely that Obama has different motivations then we do so his "right" is different than ours.
      - edanm 16y ago
        Yep, that definitely seems more likely than him being stupid or ignorant.
    - djcapelis 16y ago
      Of course that's a possibility. I merely stated my own personal doubt that inside the echo chamber he was seeing the same things we see and that alone could explain the decision. I didn't say that was the only possibility. I just mentioned it was the one I thought most likely. I think it's always important to remember smart people can make stupid decisions based on flawed data. I was reminding the poster I was replying to about this possibility. I did not actually say that Obama necessarily did this here. Though I do think it likely actually... but it's hard to tell, I don't have lunch with the guy.
chwahoo 16y ago
Aside from attributing all this to the RIAA and the MPAA, I can see a line of thought that might move policy makers in this direction. As time goes on, an increasingly large slice of the U.S. (and world) economy is coming from non-physical goods like software, movies, writing, speaking, etc. Politicians who acknowledge this would want to promote an economic environment that will let these growing industries thrive. I would imagine this is the thinking behind ACTA - we want the world to respect copyright since we expect to rely heavily on it. While people like to (rightly) point out that a downloaded song or movie is not equal to a lost sale, the potential for easy, private transfer of data WILL eat into sales significantly over time if not "controlled." What the politicians don't seem to acknowledge is that the products of this process are not scarce (although the inputs to the process are). Enforcing the illusion of scarcity (particularly with all the great privacy/crypto we have) must be extremely heavy-handed. We'll have to choose between severe restrictions in our communication (which should bother everyone) and less production of the software and movies that we desire (which would be unfortunate).
- swombat 16y ago
  What they also fail to see is that the outputs of this process are also the inputs of this process. Imposing artificial scarcity on the output restricts the input, which diminishes the output, which further affects the input, etc. Every piece of intellectual output takes as input many, many pieces that have come before.
  - chwahoo 16y ago
    That's a great point. The truly great works motivate derivative works and copyright doesn't play well with this. No work exists in a vacuum so locking up lots of our culture behind copyright will limit the space of ideas pursued. I've read that book publishers won't even allow quoting from other books without permission from the publisher (they don't trust fair-use). Still, many of the other inputs: the time of lots of people (many of them very talented) and the money of investors are definitely scarce. I think it's a tricky balancing act. However, I'm not sure the status quo is so terrible. By getting permission or paying, many copyrighted works can be used in new works. In cases where they can't some works may not be created. Along the way, creators can be compensated.
nailer 16y ago
Good to hear. Anyone on HN that makes something - whether it's been ripped off before or not - needs to be able to know they can do something about it should it happen.
patrickk 16y ago
Very uncool, Obama. Very uncool. He obviously never read this quote from the world's richest man (talking about piracy in China): "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." Source: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropiracy9/2 http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropir... If the Obama started listening to smart people in the tech and music industry, not to mention the young people who voted him into power, then he would make far more informed decisions.
ScotterC 16y ago
I find it hard to argue that piracy is beneficial. I am of the mind that intellectual property rights are currently inadequate from my own experiences in patent law. My main beef is that the RIAA and MPAA have a defunct business model and they are wielding the U.S. legal system as a tool to punish non-violent criminals severely.
_flag 16y ago
I really don't understand how anyone expects to stop people from downloading things for free. It's even possible to get songs directly off youtube and tv shows directly off hulu, just as it is possible to record songs directly off the radio. Nobody seems to notice though.

63 points by mikebo 16y ago

How is music piracy different than the following scenario: (1) I quit my day job and decide to launch a web-based startup. (2) I base my business plan on a monthly subscription model. (3) I achieve product/market fit and revenue starts coming in. (4) A technology emerges that magically makes it easy to copy my SaaS app and use it in its entirety without paying the monthly subscription. (5) My revenue plummets and I have to completely revamp my business model or go out of business. This is not a rhetorical question. I honestly want to know what is the difference. Thanks!

nkassis 16y ago
In the case of the Saas app, I think there is usually more to it that can't easily be replicated. For example, while Google email service is very Simialar to what was previously out there, they offer things like large space, reliable (don't laugh) service, trusted branding etc. Other providers offer quick development of new feature which a copied service can't easily replicate. This is the key, replicability (that's not a word ;p ) or lack of is your protection. In the end, you can't sit and wait. Even if they don't copy your app, others will offer similar products ( I think this is fair and square) and you will die if you don't continue to provide more to the user. Ubuntu One is a open source version of dropbox. I don't think dropbox will die because of it. Dropbox hosts the service and offers good support and feature development. Ubuntu's offering might not be as good. Even if it is, Competition is everywhere.
abstractbill 16y ago
Assuming your technology #4 really could be created, I don't this is much different from musical piracy. And I'd be just as ok with this as I am with things like peer-to-peer networks existing. Such a technology would be awesome - as you said, it would appear to be magic. And it would be my problem to come up with a new business model, not to outlaw a piece of new technology.
- chwahoo 16y ago
  Copying things has existed for a while (although it was never as easy as it is now). We chose to develop copyright despite this because we wanted to promote creation of works like books and music. I don't necessarily disagree with your larger point, but It's worth noting that copyright was created for exactly this purpose (limit distribution of something that would be easy for copiers to distribute, but hard for them to originate). I suspect copyright is one of the driving forces in the existence of lots of the information and entertainment I enjoy consuming on a day-to-day basis, so I'm skeptical of tossing it out completely.
  - pyre 16y ago
    Copyrights, trademarks, and patents also weren't as complex and over-bearing when they were first created as they are today. If anything, the content industries only have themselves to blame with their egregious extensions to copyright terms amongst other things. I don't think there would necessarily be the same 'tear it all down' mentality around (for example) copyright if it wasn't: 1) overly abused and 2) a ridiculous length of time. It also doesn't help that a lot of people feel entitled to copyright, when in reality it is a monopoly granted by the people, not some sort of 'God-given' right.
    - nailer 16y ago
      I feel entitled to copyright on what I make. Don't you? I make something, I determine the price and distribution. You have the right not to buy it.
      - pyre 16y ago
        Copyright is not a basic human right. You may like that you have copyright on what you make, but to claim ownership over ideas is like trying to grab a handful of water. Also, please don't try to frame this argument as, "If you are against copyright then you must be a pirate!" Please let McCarthy-ism stay dead. Since you've consistently posted in favour of copyright recently: * Do you feel the *need* to have copyright 90 years after you are dead? Is that your only incentive to create? * What about retroactive copyright extensions? Are you planning on 'un-creating' things that you created in the past because you weren't retroactively granted a copyright extension so you now have no incentive to create something that you already created? If copyright terms were 14 years long (IIRC like they were originally), I think people wouldn't have such an issue. The fact that black & white films like Steamboat Willie are sill under copyright long after anyone can make any significant amount of money off of them is a travesty. This is especially true because a lot of things that are under copyright have become part of our culture (the 'Happy Birthday song' anyone?).
alexkay 16y ago
Some companies manage to base their SaaS business on free software. Take for example Gitorious, their entire code base is released under AGPL. If something can be copied, it will be, that's the law of nature. Your business plan should take this into account.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  How is Gitorious making money? Everything I saw on google said they don't even have a business model. If so it's hardly a good example of what all people who would like to make money from what they're good at (writing software) should be doing.
  - alexkay 16y ago
    > How is Gitorious making money? By offering commercial support and custom instalations, see for example http://blog.gitorious.org/2009/05/11/welcome-qt/ http://blog.gitorious.org/2009/05/11/welcome-qt/
jamesbritt 16y ago
"A technology emerges that magically makes it easy to copy my SaaS app and use it in its entirety without paying the monthly subscription." Before such technology existed it would make sense to pursue such a business plan. But suppose such technology already exists, and you know it. It would be sort of foolish to plan a business that assumed such technology would not be used. Now suppose that this magic technology was not invented for the purpose of copying SaaS apps, but was an inevitable side-effect of other good, useful, desirable technologies. A side-effect of the technology that allowed you to build your SaaS app in the first place. Oh, and your app helped shut down other existing businesses that were not using this new technology. That it can copy your site is simply one of a million things it can do. Do you fight this technology? Freeze it? Criminalize it? One of my gripes with the IP industrial complex is that there are companies that lucked out on a transitory scarcity because of a particular stage of technological evolution. Tools existed for mass-producing physical copies and transmitting virtual copies across large distances (i.e tape and CD production, and radio/TV), but there were still sufficient financial and technical barriers to constrain its application. These businesses were based on the assumption that cheap reproduction and mass data transfer would never become so cheap or so easy that just about anyone could do it with the push of a button. Bad assumption. And now the cat's out of the bag.
marilyn 16y ago
The RIAA and MPAA do need to revamp their business model if they want to evolve into the future with the rest of us. I often wonder why the movie and music industries don't embrace torrent technology. I would definitely pay a reasonable monthly fee to access legitimate and legal trackers that they manage. It's really win-win as far as I can see. Watch what you want when you wants, and the distributions costs drop to next to nothing.
keefe 16y ago
They have money to fill great convoys of dumptrucks and you have nothing? This is not a joke, it's the reality. If you managed to scrape enough money together to have power in the world, you could start playing power games too. We need to address this with a decentralized system they can't crack down on.

nearestneighbor 16y ago

> which allows the government to charge people who they think might be about to infringe with a civil offense (for example if you searched "torrent daft punk"). I find this difficult to believe.

nkassis 16y ago
I think other sources will be needed before anyone can pass a good judgment on this news. Making the thought that leads to something criminal criminal, how does that prove you did do something criminal? or is the thought criminal? Searching for something illegal is criminal? I'm confused by this and I hope more details emerge. In the DRM case. If by-passing DRM because criminal, well... I'll be in for some long time in jail. Using Linux to watch DVDs. This is by far the best example of victimless crime I know. Who did this cost any money too? Was the hack of subverting my computer illegal? That could lead to some interesting new ways to prosecute a person whenever needed. As for copying, I don't condone it but whats a legal alternative that offers at least the minimum amount of freedom offered by the pirate option? iTunes and Amazon MP3 proved that DRM wasn't required for good sales. They truly offer the freedom to use the media as you want. There not a lot of reasons to be pirating music anymore. Movies, that's another story.
amalcon 16y ago
Not as difficult as this: The bill would make P2P or BitTorrent client development a criminal offense if the distributed software was used for infringement. UDP is peer-to-peer technology, in every sense of the term (there's no implementation-level difference between the client and server). Is everyone who produces an implementation of UDP going to be in potential violation of this measure? Either this thing's being massively exaggerated, the people who wrote the law have absolutely no understanding of communications technology, or (more likely) something in between.
- pyre 16y ago
  Even worse: > The bill would make P2P or BitTorrent client > development a criminal offense if the distributed > software was used for infringement. So if someone uses Skype voice or chat to coordinate the downloading and/or distribution of copyrighted material, could Skype have been 'used for infringement' (it's already a p2p app)? What about people peering Android and/or iOS devices together and sharing files?

henning 16y ago

Piracy is not theft.

pmccool 16y ago
More to the point, illicit downloading is not piracy. Equating downloading with armed robbery(or worse) at sea is silly.
- spudlyo 16y ago
  It's the kind non-nuanced thinking I've come to expect from Biden.
  - aaronbrethorst 16y ago
    Yeah, Palin would've offered much more nuanced commentary.
    - jokermatt999 16y ago
      Just because Palin would be worse doesn't mean that we can't acknowledge the fact that Biden could be much better than he is now.
- JesseAldridge 16y ago
  Many words in the English language have multiple meanings. "Piracy" is one of them. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piracy http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piracy
- swombat 16y ago
  Pirates are cool. I say, let's keep calling it piracy.
davidmurphy 16y ago
I respectfully disagree. Users used to pirate the software my first startup made, and that was not fun.

itistoday 16y ago

Just another symptom of living in an idiocracy. This situation will work well for the for-profit prisons in the United States, who, like the for-profit health insurance companies, make a profit off of people's misery, and will ensure that America remains #1 in persons incarcerated: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/the-high-budgetary-cost-of-incarceration/ http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/the-high-... Thankfully, the article does point out the discrepancies in Biden's claims: Interestingly, the statements seem to fly in the face of a recent Government Accountability Office study released to U.S. Congress earlier this year, which concluded that there is virtually no evidence for the claimed million dollar losses by the entertainment industry. That study suggested that piracy could even benefit the economy. Nevermind facts, we don't care if the evidence suggests that piracy helps the economy, or whether Biden's metaphor is a metaphor and not a substitute for reality, or whether that drug you're taking is not only safe, but healthy, we're still going to toss your ass in jail, or give you a fine you'll spend the rest of your life dealing with. Ars Technica did a great job thoroughly debunking the claims of the RIAA and MPAA: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/10/dodgy-digits-behind-the-war-on-piracy.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/10/dodgy-digits... And here's their take on the referenced government study: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/us-government-finally-admits-most-piracy-estimates-are-bogus.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/us-governmen... But in this country, facts don't really have much weight when it comes to policy making. The irony of all of this is that like the War on Drugs, instead of keeping people safe and happy, this coming War on Piracy will only serve as a drain on America's economy and morale, and yes, could even result in the creation of a dangerous black market. Tax dollars flushed down the toilet for the purpose of spreading misery and soothing the irrational fears of an aging and nervous minority of rich people.

JesseAldridge 16y ago
If you actually read the summary of the linked GAO paper[1], you can see that the authors of this attack piece misrepresented it. Some choice quotes that they neglected to include: "Negative effects on U.S. industry may include lost sales, lost brand value, and reduced incentives to innovate", "The U.S. economy as a whole may grow more slowly because of reduced innovation and loss of trade revenue", "research in specific industries suggest that the problem is sizeable" Basically, the report says that piracy has some bad and some good effects, but these effects are extremely difficult to quantify due to the illicit nature of piracy. Nonetheless, piracy is probably a significant problem. As it becomes easier for people to get stuff without paying for it, production of said stuff will drop. It's common sense, people. [1] http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-423 http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-423

rchi 16y ago

I doubt that Obama (with his intellect) genuinely believes that this policy will help the economy at all. Disappointing on so many levels.

djcapelis 16y ago
Why do you think smart people can't make stupid decisions now and again? I doubt he's getting full and accurate data and I doubt he's really had time to spend on the issue that this needs given the other major issues that need to be dealt with.
- edanm 16y ago
  You know, there's the off chance that: 1. He is smart. 2. As the President of the United States, he is getting all the data he needs. 3. You're the one who's wrong. I'm not saying it's necessarily true, but it sounds a little funny to say "yeah he's either stupid or ignorant" about someone who is very likely neither. It's possible he just disagrees with you, despite being smart and knowledgeable.
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    It doesn't have to be one of: a) Stupid b) Ignorant c) Wrong It is most likely that Obama has different motivations then we do so his "right" is different than ours.
    - edanm 16y ago
      Yep, that definitely seems more likely than him being stupid or ignorant.
  - djcapelis 16y ago
    Of course that's a possibility. I merely stated my own personal doubt that inside the echo chamber he was seeing the same things we see and that alone could explain the decision. I didn't say that was the only possibility. I just mentioned it was the one I thought most likely. I think it's always important to remember smart people can make stupid decisions based on flawed data. I was reminding the poster I was replying to about this possibility. I did not actually say that Obama necessarily did this here. Though I do think it likely actually... but it's hard to tell, I don't have lunch with the guy.

chwahoo 16y ago

Aside from attributing all this to the RIAA and the MPAA, I can see a line of thought that might move policy makers in this direction. As time goes on, an increasingly large slice of the U.S. (and world) economy is coming from non-physical goods like software, movies, writing, speaking, etc. Politicians who acknowledge this would want to promote an economic environment that will let these growing industries thrive. I would imagine this is the thinking behind ACTA - we want the world to respect copyright since we expect to rely heavily on it. While people like to (rightly) point out that a downloaded song or movie is not equal to a lost sale, the potential for easy, private transfer of data WILL eat into sales significantly over time if not "controlled." What the politicians don't seem to acknowledge is that the products of this process are not scarce (although the inputs to the process are). Enforcing the illusion of scarcity (particularly with all the great privacy/crypto we have) must be extremely heavy-handed. We'll have to choose between severe restrictions in our communication (which should bother everyone) and less production of the software and movies that we desire (which would be unfortunate).

swombat 16y ago
What they also fail to see is that the outputs of this process are also the inputs of this process. Imposing artificial scarcity on the output restricts the input, which diminishes the output, which further affects the input, etc. Every piece of intellectual output takes as input many, many pieces that have come before.
- chwahoo 16y ago
  That's a great point. The truly great works motivate derivative works and copyright doesn't play well with this. No work exists in a vacuum so locking up lots of our culture behind copyright will limit the space of ideas pursued. I've read that book publishers won't even allow quoting from other books without permission from the publisher (they don't trust fair-use). Still, many of the other inputs: the time of lots of people (many of them very talented) and the money of investors are definitely scarce. I think it's a tricky balancing act. However, I'm not sure the status quo is so terrible. By getting permission or paying, many copyrighted works can be used in new works. In cases where they can't some works may not be created. Along the way, creators can be compensated.

nailer 16y ago

Good to hear. Anyone on HN that makes something - whether it's been ripped off before or not - needs to be able to know they can do something about it should it happen.

patrickk 16y ago

Very uncool, Obama. Very uncool. He obviously never read this quote from the world's richest man (talking about piracy in China): "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." Source: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropiracy9/2 http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropir... If the Obama started listening to smart people in the tech and music industry, not to mention the young people who voted him into power, then he would make far more informed decisions.

ScotterC 16y ago

I find it hard to argue that piracy is beneficial. I am of the mind that intellectual property rights are currently inadequate from my own experiences in patent law. My main beef is that the RIAA and MPAA have a defunct business model and they are wielding the U.S. legal system as a tool to punish non-violent criminals severely.

_flag 16y ago

I really don't understand how anyone expects to stop people from downloading things for free. It's even possible to get songs directly off youtube and tv shows directly off hulu, just as it is possible to record songs directly off the radio. Nobody seems to notice though.