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It's crippling innovation before people even begin. I was chatting about encryption with some young chap, and I suggested a good way for him to learn about the

It's crippling innovation before people even begin. I was chatting about encryption with some young chap, and I suggested a good way for him to learn about the practicalities of it would be to just sit down and code. He was astonished; he genuinely thought that the principles behind common encryption tools were in some way exclusive property of various companies and that he was legally forbidden from coding up his own implementation. This is a true story and it's a belief that is on the streets right now; some people believe even mathematics is legally owned by someone and they can't use it. If people won't experiment, they can't innovate. Note that the countries that don't give a damn about so-called IP happily copy everything they can get their hands on. It will not take them long to start innovating on top of what already exists.

Vivtek 16y ago
I'd be willing to bet that this attitude in young people is greatly influenced by the constant hammering of media produced for young people on the point that IP violation is a crime that will get you put in prison. Disney makes a lot of the entertainment for young people in America. They harp a lot on piracy being a crime that gets you arrested immediately, regardless of the truth - I don't watch a lot of Disney, but I can think of two instances right off the top of my head, one being an episode of iCarly, and the other being Minute Men, a made-for-TV movie my kids and I watched last night on Netflix.
- marshray 16y ago
  Yeah it's pretty sick, isn't it? Still they're not convincing anyone and are just making themselves look sleazy in the process. They ought to remember that in just a few years these kids are going to be: A. downloading stuff, B. very cynical about authority, and C. spending lots of money. Nick and Disney are increasingly uncool in our house. Youtube and anime are taking up all the screen time these days.
  - Vivtek 16y ago
    they're not convincing anyone and are just making themselves look sleazy I beg to differ. It's astoundingly effective propaganda, because it's unexpected. Down in Puerto Rico, there's an incredibly ham-handed, telenovela-like RIAA anti-piracy ad played before every movie in the theater (or was, for a couple of years). People laugh out loud at it, it's so bad, and since it's clear that the RIAA isn't Puerto Rican anyway, everybody feels free to ignore it. But when you have police coming to pick somebody up for filesharing (!) on iCarly as part of a plot point, you slip that propaganda right past people's internal censors. I had to explain to the kids that this part of the plot was a blatant lie, and my wife still doesn't buy it. It doesn't matter how sleazy Disney looks to you and me - the question is how pervasive that belief becomes in the populace at large. It's money well spent by Disney for their own bottom line, but I hadn't thought of the larger consequences for society, and that's pretty frightening.

Vivtek 16y ago

I'd be willing to bet that this attitude in young people is greatly influenced by the constant hammering of media produced for young people on the point that IP violation is a crime that will get you put in prison. Disney makes a lot of the entertainment for young people in America. They harp a lot on piracy being a crime that gets you arrested immediately, regardless of the truth - I don't watch a lot of Disney, but I can think of two instances right off the top of my head, one being an episode of iCarly, and the other being Minute Men, a made-for-TV movie my kids and I watched last night on Netflix.

marshray 16y ago
Yeah it's pretty sick, isn't it? Still they're not convincing anyone and are just making themselves look sleazy in the process. They ought to remember that in just a few years these kids are going to be: A. downloading stuff, B. very cynical about authority, and C. spending lots of money. Nick and Disney are increasingly uncool in our house. Youtube and anime are taking up all the screen time these days.
- Vivtek 16y ago
  they're not convincing anyone and are just making themselves look sleazy I beg to differ. It's astoundingly effective propaganda, because it's unexpected. Down in Puerto Rico, there's an incredibly ham-handed, telenovela-like RIAA anti-piracy ad played before every movie in the theater (or was, for a couple of years). People laugh out loud at it, it's so bad, and since it's clear that the RIAA isn't Puerto Rican anyway, everybody feels free to ignore it. But when you have police coming to pick somebody up for filesharing (!) on iCarly as part of a plot point, you slip that propaganda right past people's internal censors. I had to explain to the kids that this part of the plot was a blatant lie, and my wife still doesn't buy it. It doesn't matter how sleazy Disney looks to you and me - the question is how pervasive that belief becomes in the populace at large. It's money well spent by Disney for their own bottom line, but I hadn't thought of the larger consequences for society, and that's pretty frightening.