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BitTorrent is to movies what "bolt-cutters are to stealing bicycles"
- compumike 16y agoAnd while bolt cutters are common items that can be used in plenty of legal ways, it can be illegal to have bolt cutters in some situations. Ever heard of "Possession of Burglarious Tools"? (varies from state to state) Intent / purpose matters greatly in the eyes of the law. Check out these jury instructions from Massachusetts: http://www.mass.gov/courts/courtsandjudges/courts/districtcourt/jury-instructions/criminal/pdf/8180-possession-of-burglarious-tools.pdf http://www.mass.gov/courts/courtsandjudges/courts/districtco...
- pg 16y agoBitTorrent is to movies what air is to sound.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- bigiain 16y agoI agree 100% Bit torrent is a genuinely useful tool, that happens to be useful for both fully legitimate purposes as well as other uses. I'd accept some lobby group applying pressure to make bit torrent "illegal" right after they get majority public agreement that cars should be illegal (bank robbers use them to make their escape!) and spray paint (graffiti taggers use it!)
- ericd 16y agoI think the person that said that quote is implying that things like bolt cutters should be made illegal, strangely enough. He also wants DMCA's safe harbor provisions curtailed.
- cgranade 16y agoIt kind of amazes me that someone can make a statement like that bolt cutters analogy and not stop to ponder why bolt cutters are still legal, despite their utility in stealing bicycles.
- lukeschlather 16y agoIt actually doesn't sound anything like they're looking to make BitTorrent illegal. They want to levy egregious fines against anyone using BitTorrent for piratical ends, and make ISPs just as liable as their users. They don't need to outlaw BitTorrent when they can ban people from the Internet at will. And furthermore they're not stupid. They know that BitTorrent is just a protocol, and it's presently just as easy to get pirated content over plain old HTTP as BitTorrent.
- barista 16y agoThe classic mistake of equating bits to atoms!
- iwwr 16y agoYou can't really fit IP into the same framework as physical property rights. Whether we think IP is valid, it should be treated as distinct. Be it through the theory of 'social value' (IP in general) or 'social incentives' (patents) or the needs of business identification (trademarks). A physical property right refers to a physical good, whereas an intellectual property right refers more to behaviors (making a nondestructive copy) and to classes of goods (eg. storage media). It's also relatively easy to define a physical good or a physical boundary of land, but 'original creations' are much less precise. Indeed, nothing is really created in isolation and oftentimes, the same invention is developed independently (and near at the same time) by multiple entities. We should rather call IP an intellectual monopoly privilege, than a right to a piece of property.
- VladRussian 16y ago>as physical property rights ... >We should rather call IP an intellectual monopoly privilege, than a right to a piece of property. I hope you don't overestimate what physical property rights are, in particular that typical "fee simple" title is basically the license ("monopoly privilege"?) to a real estate vs. allodial title which is almost impossible, at least in the US nowdays.
- iwwr 16y agoThanks for the reference, btw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title I didn't know that particular term. But I would distinguish rights from their actual recognition. Rights can exist without them having to be recognized. They can't be taken away, just infringed against. If someone has been wrongly imprisoned, his rights still exist, even if they are being broken systematically. Also, the difference between IP as a 'right' and as a 'privilege' consists in the difficulty of arranging for a system of IPs in a world without a monopolistic enforcer (or 'privilege granter'). It could be just that IP is a new phenomenon and our social systems are not yet prepared to deal with it. It could also be that IP is falsely recognized and their enforcement further breaks existing rights.
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- dionidium 16y agoA general purpose tool with criminal uses? Well, yeah.
- MichaelGG 16y agoHas there been any successful criminal prosecution of BitTorrent users?
- mryall 16y agoOr, more to the point, bolt cutter users?
- ImperatorLunae 16y ago"An elderly Oklahoma man landed himself in jail after using bolt cutters to break his prized pooch from the pound." http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9027221 http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9027221
- markkat 16y agoNo, I'd say it's like a very fast and free bicycle copy machine. No one loses their bike, but it might upset bicycle-makers.
- w1ntermute 16y agoOn a related note, there was an interesting article in the Economist on the implications of the anticipated widespread use of 3D printing in the near future.[0] It will be very interesting to see how the manufacturing industry responds to this change and the similarities/differences compared to digital products. 0: http://www.economist.com/node/18114327?story_id=18114327 http://www.economist.com/node/18114327?story_id=18114327
- DanielStraight 16y agoWhen you put it in these terms, it seems almost impossible to justify copying music. You expect a company to put in the time and money necessary to develop a good bicycle so they can sell one and then have it copied forever? How can a system like this possibly survive? People in the developed world have lost almost all sense of the true cost of what they consume. We buy gasoline without paying or knowing the cost of undoing the environmental damage. We buy plastic cups and bowls and plates and forks and knives and spoons and bottles and packages without even thinking about the cost to recycle them or hold them in landfills until they decompose (if they even do). We buy clothes without considering the wage of the person that made them. We buy meat without concern for the suffering of the animals or the environmental degradation from the production of livestock. Or the impact to the soil from monoculture farming. Or the impact to our health from the monoculture farming. We buy technological gadgets without even knowing what chemicals they contain, where they come from, and what their global supply looks like. Then we think nothing of throwing those gadgets in the garbage five years later. We rely on minimum wage workers every day to stock our stores and clean our offices (and many other things) without caring about the struggles of low-income families. And yes, we copy music without considering the financing required to produce art. No, no one loses their bike with a bike copying machine. But quite a few people lose their jobs. And everyone loses the benefit of their innovation.
- mkramlich 16y agoAnd just like bolt cutters, it can be used for many things other than stealing. Therefore, it is very useful tool and it is now and should in the future remain legal.
- JonnieCache 16y agoYeah. What are the Authors Guild going to do when all their bolts are the wrong length?
- praptak 16y ago"And just like bolt cutters, it can be used for many things other than stealing." And, contrary to what those guys might want you to think, it cannot even be used for stealing.
- cs9 16y agoAnother wet US dream to force everybody under their rules. Wikileaks demonstrated the urgent need of an US independent Internet infrastructure, i.e. DNS, payment.
- elbrodeur 16y agoFTA: "Piracy has all but dismantled our recorded music industry. Any business plan in the music industry must now take into account that piracy is the rule, not the exception." I think that this doesn't seem to be quite true. There is ample evidence to support the idea that it's current laws and litigation that are stifling innovation and "business plans". I'm of the opinion that if there is anything that is promoting or enabling piracy, it's the lack of innovation.
- chadgeidel 16y agoI'm not a fan of piracy, but it's hyperbole like this that has to stop. The recorded music industry seems to be quite vibrant - contrary to the claims of the MPAA for the past, oh, 10 or so years. (edit - voicing agreement with the parent)
- rick888 16y ago" I'm of the opinion that if there is anything that is promoting or enabling piracy, it's the lack of innovation." no innovation? We've gone from CDs to online streaming music like pandora,last.fm, and grooveshark. I remember when Napster first came out and the pirates of the Internet tried to legitimize their actions by saying that music was just too expensive and you couldn't "try before you buy". Next, it was DRM. Now that music is 99 cents/song (and many times less than this), you can get it with no DRM, and you can pretty much listen to any song you want for free before buying, you would think that sales would increase and piracy would decrease. Instead, it's worse than ever and sales have been tanking, which is exactly why the music industry wanted to stop it in the first place. What "laws and litigation" are stifiling "business plans' and innovation?
- RyanMcGreal 16y ago"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." -- Jack Valenti, MPAA president, in testimony to Congress, 1982 http://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm http://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm I guess the film industry has gotten a bit less hyperbolic in the intervening years.
- mryall 16y agoYeah, and even less logical. Which court has ever ruled that we should ban bolt cutters to prevent bike theft?
- lhnn 16y agoWhen I read the title, I thought it was going to be an article defending BitTorrent as a technology.
- lukeschlather 16y agoIt's pretty clear from the article that they fully understand that BitTorrent is a legitimate technology, and that's why they're instead asking for the right to sue people who link to infringing content.
- GHFigs 16y agoThe bolt-cutter quote comes from the president of the Author's Guild, not part of the film industry. That is in the first sentence of the article.
- pessimizer 16y agoThe president of the Author's Guild, Scott Turow, is part of the film industry.
- GHFigs 16y agoOn what basis do you make that claim? I don't see any made in your or the previous post. I don't think that stretching the truth to make it seem like the Valenti quote is relevant is at all justified. For comparison, here is the introduction in his testimony: "My name is Scott Turow. I'm the president of the Authors Guild, the largest society of published authors in the U.S., representing more than 8,500 book authors and freelance writers. Our members represent the broad sweep of American authorship, including literary and genre fiction, nonfiction, trade, academic, and children’s book authors, textbook authors, freelance journalists and poets. Guild members have won countless honors and all major literary awards, including the Nobel Prize for Literature."
- jemfinch 16y agoHey, that's a pretty apt description, actually. I can still go down to my local hardware store and buy bolt cutters.
- todayiamme 16y agoWhat should scare them is that they are fighting an exponential. In their daily lives these people have become accustomed to constants that pretty much remain the same throughout their lifetimes, but computing by its very nature is exponential. As people follow Moore's law religiously and the price of computing drops so does, proportionally, the price of digital distribution. It's this sudden increase of processing power that allows millions of computers to run protocols like BitTorrent. That creates the infrastructure to run them in the first place. Although now they appear to be hardly computationally expensive, but even 20 years ago in 1991, would this have been possible? Their problem is that this exponential nature of computing has vanished the floor on the price of distribution. Since, they're fighting an exponential this means that iteration also becomes far more easier. It's just a question of just a few more processor cycles. The real world systems they're using to clamp down are fairly constant. Politicians and the art of law making hasn't really changed over the past 80 years or so. So, by the time it takes them to iterate and be ready for the next wave. It's successor would have knocked them off their feet. So, in one corner you have a constant system. In the other you have an exponential. Who do you think wins? That aside as Fuller would say, "don't fight forces. Use them." note: as donaldc points out it really is more of a result of hard drive growth & bandwidth than pure processing power.
- donaldc 16y agoIt is exponential, but it's more a result of the exponential growth in hard drive storage space and internet bandwidth.
- todayiamme 16y agoThank you for correcting me.
- tsuyoshi 16y agoSetting aside the difference between taking a tangible thing and copying an intangible thing, BitTorrent is more like a pickup truck than bolt-cutters. It's useful for transferring large files, like a pickup truck is useful for carting around large objects. The funny thing to me is, I would think if they want effective tools for tracking down who is infringing on their copyrights, BitTorrent is great, because it's easy to see who is transferring what. Before BitTorrent came around, everyone was using ftp, irc, nttp, etc. which are harder to track. Anyway, DVD decryption software would be the bolt-cutters.
- xutopia 16y agoBitTorrent is to movies what repeating a friend's joke is to humour.
- beej71 16y agoBitTorrent is to movies what big spoons are to making salad!
- bsiemon 16y agoCreating and/or controlling things that are scarce is an easy way to make money. It is interesting too see how technology constantly erodes business models based on this concept.
- drdaeman 16y agoI hope they'd outlaw bolt-cutters, so nobody will steal our precious bicycles.
- rbanffy 16y agoSo, what else are bolt-cutters useful for?
- tripzilch 16y ago> BitTorrent is to movies what "bolt-cutters are to stealing bicycles" ummmmmm ... how does this analogy work? Bolt-cutters are to stealing bicycles, a tool that facilitates and simplifies an activity. So the analogy goes, BitTorrent facilitates and simplifies movies. I think they left out a verb and meant to say "BitTorrent is to watching movies what bolt-cutters are to stealing bicycles".
- praptak 16y agoBad analogies are like leaky screwdrivers.
- ConceptDog 16y agoBook and movie distribution channels have approximately 2 years left to evolve or die. Music faced the same thing and decided to fight a losing war. They can be smart and embrace the change before it overwhelms them or be stuck culturally in traditional distribution and get swept away before recovering as music has done through iTunes and indy.