OT: An Interesting Read About Bit-Torrents

[Gandalf Parker]

The law is full of many apparently disconnected things that do apply here. They end up asking "was reasonable effort made to comply with the law". It comes up in everything from mean dogs, to icey sidewalks, to stores displaying adult material, etc etc. What is reasonable effort or unreasonable effort. In the case of things like P2P software, or reMailer software, or disc copying software, its going to come up as an effort to change the direction from writing it so that NO accountability can possibly be done to writing in some ability for accountability.

[Nodachi]

Going after the BT sites is only a peice of the picture. Take a good look at the DMCA, here's a link to an excellent analysis. In a nutshell, the big corporations want you to have no fair use rights. Look at your game collection, how many of us make a back-up copy just as soon as we buy a game? Well if your games were movie dvds or music cds and RIAA/MPAA had their way those back-ups would be illegal.

[geoschmo]

Somebody will have to explain to me why this is a bad thing. Why do we assume that we have an inalienable right to make copies of software, even for backup purposes?

I'm trying to make a corellation to some other product we use in our lives, but it doesn't really translate well. We don't have magic boxes that we can stick our shirts and dishes into and have instantaneous perfect duplicates come out the other side.

[tesco samoa]

geo they are not perfect duplicates.

A mp3 is not a perfect duplicate
Nor is a divx

With compression there is loss.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Geo, I do not buy games. I license the software. This is clearly stated in the EULA. As this license confers the right to use the software, with the restrictions stated in the EULA, my rights of use are not, in my opinion, tied to a specific piece of medium, but the code contained on the medium. Wether I use that code when it is contained on a cd I bought or one I copied (From a cd I bought) is irrevelent to the cd manufacturer and the content creater, as long as I do not give any of the cd's containing that code away.

Plus, many EULA's specifically give the user the right to make a backup copy.

In contrast, if I buy a toy, I do not license the use of it, I buy that object, and thereafter it is my responcibility, including any breakage it suffers.

[Aiken]

geoschmo said:
Somebody will have to explain to me why this is a bad thing. Why do we assume that we have an inalienable right to make copies of software, even for backup purposes?

Because I purchase it. Seller offers me some commodity for a certain price, and I agree with it and pay him money to obtain an inalienable right to use it at my own discretion. This is a basic principle of market. Now I can use, destroy, present, resell or keep it. All restrictions to my intentions towards this commodity are artificial obstacles which violate my rights to a certain extent.

[geoschmo]

Interestingly Narf and Aiken you are both disagreeing with me, but you seem to be making arguments that are exactly opposite of one another.

Narf you say that you aren't buying a physical object, but a license. And the license allows you to make backup copies. This is correct in many (most?) cases and I have no disagreement to it. However, the original point being made was that the content providers seem to be moving towards eliminating that as a feature of the licensing. And there are the myriad shades of grey now involving what does or does not constitute fair use under the current licenses.

Aiken, you seem to be taking the opposite side of the argument. Going so far as to call it a "commodity" and saying you have the right to do with it whatever you want, even destroying it. This is true of the CD the software comes on of course, but is it true of the software on the CD? DO you have the right to copy it and then destoy the original?

It's not a commodity really is it? If you destroy a shirt you bought you can't use the backup copy of the shirt. In that case you aren't really buying the shirt as much as you are buying the labor, materials and skills neccesary to make the shirt for you. If you destroy the shirt and make your own, you aren't doing anything wrong. But that will take time and effort on yoru part.

But if you copy software, you aren't doing the same thing as making your own software. There is no labor, no skill invested on your part. You are pressing a button and making a copy. So it's clearly not the same thing as every other product and commodity you might purchase.

Tesco, your point isn't really a legal one but a technical issue. I didn't want you to think I was ignoring you, but I don't see how it applies to the question.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

You missed one of my points: I am not licensing the cd, I am licensing the software.

Also, the whole licensing scheme (To the best of my knowledge) arose because people argued that, because they had bought the software, they had the rights to make copies and distribut them. This is absurd, as is the whole licensing scheme. Aiken's arguements focused on how it should work; I was pointing out how it worked.

Your point about copying software leads to the question of wether I owe the company that made the cd copy I bought .99c for the cd I would otherwise have bought. The software is not involved, as I already demonstrated I have a license to use it.

[Aiken]

geoschmo said:
Interestingly Narf and Aiken you are both disagreeing with me, but you seem to be making arguments that are exactly opposite of one another.

Well, my point was theoretical, while Narf's one was practical. And from the point of view of classic economics, various EULAs are just contracts of general tenancy. But their prevalence doesn't mean it's the best way of "selling" software. For consumer of course. Software companies are pretty happy with their licenses.

Aiken, you seem to be taking the opposite side of the argument. Going so far as to call it a "commodity" and saying you have the right to do with it whatever you want, even destroying it. This is true of the CD the software comes on of course, but is it true of the software on the CD? DO you have the right to copy it and then destoy the original?

It's not a commodity really is it? If you destroy a shirt you bought you can't use the backup copy of the shirt. In that case you aren't really buying the shirt as much as you are buying the labor, materials and skills neccesary to make the shirt for you. If you destroy the shirt and make your own, you aren't doing anything wrong. But that will take time and effort on yoru part.

But if you copy software, you aren't doing the same thing as making your own software. There is no labor, no skill invested on your part. You are pressing a button and making a copy. So it's clearly not the same thing as every other product and commodity you might purchase.

It's all about our _technical_ inability to reproduce material goods quickly and precisely. It doesn't change the commodity nature of software. Take a book, and make a copy of this book with a copying equipment. Your work is incomparably easier than process of writing this book by author, but you have a copy of this book and it's legal (not sure about US, though ). Also, the process of copying with a computer can involve writing thousands lines of code, and heavy programming wizardry. Does it mean that this method is more legal than click-n-drool actions?
Also I can never buy an actual information, I can buy a copy of this information tightly associated with material carrier (cd, tape, or computer system itself). And this total of carrier and copy of an information is what I call "commodity". So if I make a backup copy of cd, it will be a copy of a copy of sofware/information. So where's the original? The original is shared amongst the brains of creators of this information, computer storages, paper notes etc. It's virtual and it doesn't exist in a single tangible form.

[Atrocities]

Makinus said:
(i live in Brazil) I´m having nightmares about how much time i will have to wait until SEV arrives to me since my friend in not in the US anymore but back in Brazil, but i simply don´t accept pirating SEV, since Aaron is one of the few 'good guys' we find in the game industry nowadays...

I am certain that you can work something out with GameFront.com on this issue.