This little video is beginning to appear more often on the DVDs I rent. The non sequitur is glaring.
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/11385/did-you-catch-the-non-sequitur/
Did you catch the non sequitur?
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This has been on Australian DVDs for as long as I can remember. I hate this freaking crap. It’s even on DVDs I have legally bought and paid for. Grrrrr…
As for the non sequitur:
1. Downloading pirated films is stealing.
2. Stealing is against the law.
3. Piracy. It’s a crime.
…
Fail.
Remember kids: Pirated copies don’t make you sit through this crap! Always get your movies from torrent release groups (aXXo and ilk), the only sources who care about their customers.
“Nobody owns Christmas carols, they belong to everyone, like grapes at the grocery store.”
“Nobody owns Christmas carols, they belong to everyone, like grapes at the grocery store.”
line three sounds like it follows from the previous two. not that the first line is true but…
There’s no such thing as a free lunch, mate. If it’s free for you, someone else paid for it.
So this is the whole post? a youtube link? No expounding, elucidation be it via economic principle, logic, or anecdote? Why even bother posting it. We all have access to youtube and I’m sure enough of us have seen the ad. It’s not even a new ad. Jog on.
This is an obvious non sequitor. The examples they showed are examples of scarce goods. When one person steals scarce goods, the victim of the theft loses the goods. In the case of piracy, it is completely different. If I pirate a movie, nobody loses their copy of the movie as a result. In fact, the “thieves” are the recipients of the grant of monopoly privilege, not those who heroically resist it. It is the MPAA that is “stealing” as they are the ones who are supporting the initiation of force against people to prevent them from using their justly-acquired property as they see fit.
This all sounds very neat and tidy when you are not the one whose ideas and hard work and creativity and intellectual property are being stolen. When you say no one loses a copy of a movie when you pirate it, you are wrong. You lose your fairly acquired copy. The person who put a chunk of their life in it loses their wages. You are taking something created by someone else, which they worked hard to make and market, and denying them their fair return. That doesn’t sound like capitalism to me. The fact that the laws may not be perfect does not make your theft right. And I haven’t observed that cars or purses or cell phones are any more scarce or more worthy of protection than music or movies.
Ha Ha! “Stealing is against the Law” Ha Ha!
Given that the people deciding how we should run our lives steal 25-50% of everything we do in order to rule us, you’d think they’d understand my wanting to see a movie, especially if I didn’t rob someone else to see it!
so people put their sweat, blood, and tears into movies like avatar. it doesn’t necessarily follow that i have to pay for it. leonardo put a lot of effort into the mona lisa and i can download high-res copies on the internet for free. so someone can make money doing something. that doesn’t mean that they SHOULD make money doing it. the black market isn’t necessarily wrong, though it might be illegal sometimes. one thing about pirated movies is that is provides an incentive for them to figure out other ways of making money with movies.
some things in life don’t seem right, but that doesn’t mean anything. technology has a way of making many thing obsolete, including habits and tendencies of thought.
the black market isn’t necessarily wrong, though it might be illegal sometimes.
i doubt it.
how well are entertainment stocks doing admidst all the copying activity?
multiple millions of dollars still make it to actors and FX companies?
i disagree with the piracy label.
i certainly dont mind supporting the arts.
there is a broadcast classsical station where i used to live that flourishes all from listener patronage.
entertainment industries will make make money from a shifting paradigm if copying expands – why wouldnt they? coded satellite broadcasts of movies directly to the theatres only or something. higher prices for the real goods that play portable media,etc.
Lucie,
You say “When you say no one loses a copy of a movie when you pirate it, you are wrong. You lose your fairly acquired copy.”
Umm….what?
Anyway, I like this spoof of the vid…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm3MTiphcu8&feature=related
The Law is against the Law.
The Law…It’s a crime.
Love it. Methinks Bastiat would approve.
As an artist, the more positive exposure I receive, the better. Does anyone believe not enough good movies are being made because of illegal downloading? Most artist want their music to be heard, and videos seen, and if it is pirated they still get credited. Basically the only one harmed are super mega-companies who don’t create art, they just thrive off the system.
still on the IP kick i see
Jim Fedako,
“This little video is beginning to appear more often on the DVDs I rent. The non sequitur is glaring.”
Why would you rent any DVD’s.
You have right to watch every movie for free. Go ahead and download the movie over the internet instead of renting it. Don’t you know when you rent a movie, you are actually paying the government backed evil monopolist called movie studios?
Shame on you for supporting this oppressive private property bullshit whit you money.
Movie studios need to grow up and realize that if they simply simultaneously release their films in theaters and over the internet as a streaming high-def feature then there would be no need for torrents…
Coincidentally, a great new article on IP just came out by Stephan Kinsella. See here:
http://blog.mises.org/archives/011383.asp
I like this version better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC5tp9OzXc8
This is funny too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVnCFe3xsHs&feature=related
“Movie studios need to grow up and realize that if they simply simultaneously release their films in theaters and over the internet as a streaming high-def feature then there would be no need for torrents…”
Why would they want to do that? Take on the added expense of dedicated bandwidth when they can just get all of us to supply our own bandwidth? When Radiohead did their “In Rainbows” experiment, I didn’t even bother going on their website. I downloaded it via torrent, saved them their bandwidth, and bought it on vinyl a month later, for the nice big artwork and high quality, effectively permanent physical audio copy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLZpxVI7Pa8
Catchy.
The non sequitur…
That you’re being told not to steal on a DVD you PAID money for.
Ironic because downloaded stuff doesn’t have this problem, does it?
lol
I had to buy a new DVD player last week. This “new” player respects the “user lock-out” tag on various parts of the DVD.
So now, when the crap like this RIAA commercial start, and I push the “skip” button, I get a red circle with a line through it and have to sit through the commercial. Fast forward doesn’t work either.
Samsung’s customer service guy took several minutes to figure out what I was talking about, found the spot in the script, and said “your machine is working correctly”.
Now I have more incentive to not buy MPAA approved disks. Luckily, I already make and use DVD-R backups of the movies I buy, so the kids can scratch and destroy and not break the bank. And it’s easy enough to strip out the crap so I never have to see it.
But, as Mac points out, the downloads don’t have the crap to begin with.
I object to the term “piracy”. Pirates are violent, physically coercive muggers, and deserve to be shot by their intended victims (if the victims were allowed arms, of course).
What downloaders are doing is much more akin to smuggling. Moving goods and services illegally, under the noses of officials and bureaucrats. John Hancock and Paul Revere come to mind.
Let’s hear it for the smugglers, free people evading the coercive state!
This is relevant too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAkq1OezI6g
It’s the politics of contraband,
It’s the smuggler’s blues.
I really appreciate the Austrian view, but this defiance against intellectual property is troubling. What incentive would a composer, author, artist, etc. have if they do not own their own work?
Isn’t all property intellectual in nature?
Do not “steal it” nor buy it. Just tell them to stick it.
Aaron
You (and many other people) should read “against intellectual monopoly” by Boldrin and Levine as well as Stephen Kinsellas book “Against Intellectual Property”.
Wage Buster,
The Mona Lisa is out of copyright.
I don’t see any non sequiturs, glaring or no. The logic follows.
“When you say no one loses a copy of a movie when you pirate it, you are wrong. You lose your fairly acquired copy.”
That is right. Before a would-be pirate downloads the movie they are part of the market to buy the movie. If the cost is too high, they might not buy it, but if it is put on sale they might buy it. After they pirate it, they are out of the market.
Someone said it well when they pointed out that nothing is free. If you got it free, someone else picked up the cost.
Curt Howland, don’t you hate those unskippable things at the beginning? I recetly acquired a hand-me-down cheapo Sanyo DVD-VHS combo and it has a very nice feature: auto-play. When enabled and you insert a DVD, it immediately starts playing the main feature (it finds the longest feature on the disk). No unskippable bullshit like the above, nor unskippable previews, nor annoying menus with lots of dumb animations. I’m amazed all players didn’t have this feature from the start.
Some dude wrote, “Someone said it well when they pointed out that nothing is free. If you got it free, someone else picked up the cost.”
You’re actually correct. Even an unauthorized copy of a movie isn’t free, as there is the cost of downloading and saving to the hard disk. But it’s the downloader who pays these costs, therefore it’s all good. As for other things, I am not sure who to submit payment to. For example, today I made use of the idea of gravity many times, and used language quite a bit. Whom do I pay for this use? Someone has to pick up the cost of all this unfunded use. The bill must be astronomical by now.
Some dude says:
“Someone said it well when they pointed out that nothing is free. If you got it free, someone else picked up the cost.”
This is just a twisting of words. If you get something free, it is not a problem if the person you get it from gives it to you. It is only a problem if it is stolen. And the downloaded movie is not stolen. The original uploader owns a physical copy of the movie. What he decides to do with his justly acquired property is his own business. He can keep it to himself, destroy it, make copies and give them away, or even *gasp* allow people to copy it if he so pleases.
Also, the only two relevant parties are the uploader and the downloader and they do agree on a price. The price just happens to be zero. Nothing wrong with that.
I swear, it’s almost as if people want goods to remain scarce. Just imagine if a replicator machine a la Star Trek was developed. To remain consistent, the pro-IP people out there would have to denounce the practice of replication. I can hear it now.
“Wait, this device can provide goods essentially for free? This is an outrage. What about the producers of the goods that are replicated. Their livlihoods are being destroyed.”
Give me a break.
Non pirate is expensive. Pirate is available for peanuts. How much to produce a legitimate whatever will cost? Greed is the reason why legitimate stuff is so highly priced? Oh! The authors, the investors, the producers, the distributors, the brokers, the stockholders, the tenants, the owners, the police, the congress, everybody must have a take on it. Is it not too much people to grab a bit on so small things?
The RIAA/MPAA have successfully redefined copyright infringement as theft via propaganda and hyperbole.
Theft is taking via physical force or fraud; real, finite, scarce physical property.
Copyright infringement is violation of the State’s grant of monopoly to the copyright holder over ideas, information & expression these.
The two are no where near the same morally. The former is malum en se, the latter, malum prohibitum. In a stateless society, we would still all agree robbery at gunpoint is evil. We do not need a government law to tell us so. Would copyright infringement exist in a stateless society?
Private property is at the core of liberty, without question. Free humanity values private property because all resources are finite. To be free means to first, own one’s body and mind. To be free also means keeping what one produces through one’s own action and labor, as these are finite.
Certainly a painting, a sculpture, etc. are finite creations. We value them because they are original and scarce. Artistic expressions of music, video, written word & various permutations that once recorded electronically, become infinite in supply.
Do ideas, information and expressions of ideas & information qualify as private property?
@Aaron said
The word ‘Own’ is incorrect here, sure its your creation, but owning implies property rights.
So basically you are saying that unless we give a composer monopoly over the sale of his product he has no incentive to compose, then the question arises what incentive any company has to produce something when others can easy start producing the same product.
Why does a tire producer produces tires when others can easily outsell him in the market. Why does Apple makes iPhone when Google has come in the market giving Apple competition and cutting Apple’s market share(a consumer can either buy a Apple smartphone or Google Smartphone but mostly not both)
Aaron, dear,
“Nothing is in the material world that has not first been in the intellect”. (mind?)
This is St. Thomas Aquinas, a philosofer, but could be the mentor of all intellectual property dudes.
Some arguments here rest on the idea that if X does something that others find a way to derive benefit from, then X has a right to be compensated. This idea leaves out the essential element that the others must be taking something from X in order to warrant compensation. If nothing is being taken, what claim does X have? He has lost nothing, so what’s the problem? So I ask those making this argument, if I make an unauthorized copy of a music CD from a friend, or download a copy, what have I taken from the original creator of the CD, and is whatever I took something the creator ever owned in the first place?
Can’t we just say that when you buy a *legal* copy of a movie or a film you are, implicitly, signing an agreement NOT TO copy it yourself or allow others to make copies of it?
I mean, if I wrote a book, and if there were no IP laws, I would lend my originals to someone ONLY if that person agreed to not make any non-authorized copies of it, and to not let anyone else do it too. Wouldn’t you?
There, IP rights problem solved!
Renegade Division:
I own my mind and my thoughts. When I bring those thoughts into the physical realm whether in the form of books, art, songs, or industrial works, I own them. Surely my private property rights apply here.
This is one reason I say that all property rights are intellectual in nature.
Does society own my mind and thoughts? If I don’t own rights to a work of literature, conceivably they can be reproduced without my permission. Eventually I would lose the market for my creation. So you see my concerns?
Regards,
Aaron
Bruno,
Sure we could say that. We can espouse all types of nonsense. But nonsense is rarely helpful.
What’s so special about movies and books? If we were to apply the idea that one “implicitly signs an agreement NOT TO copy” to all products, we would only have to sit back, relax, watch commerce grind to a halt, and witness the collapse of society. I’ll pass on that one.
Also, you conviently switch between using the words “buying” and “lending” to describe transactions. This confusion of language pretty much makes your post incomprehensible. Are you really trying to suggest that all economic transactions should be viewed as lending and borrowing? I doubt it.
Aaron,
Sorry to jump in here but you say:
“I own my mind and my thoughts. When I bring those thoughts into the physical realm whether in the form of books, art, songs, or industrial works, I own them. Surely my private property rights apply here.”
Yeah. You own them and your private property rights apply. Until you sell the phyical property in exchange for something else. At that point, you have traded your property (the book or whatever) for the other person’s property (usually money). You can now do with the money as you please. And the other person can do with the book as he/she pleases. Perhaps it is money that obscures the picture here.
Imagine living under a barter system. You produce a book and I produce a CD of music. I want your book and you want my CD. We agree to trade. Would you really argue that you somehow still own the book? That your property rights still hold? Would you accept that I can still exercise ownership over the (now your) CD? Doubtful. Before the trade you were allowed to do with your book whatever you wanted. And I was allowed to do whatever I wanted with my CD. The trade does nothing to disrupt this relationship.
What is troubling concerning those who support a “strong” copyright regime is that they believe that they can deprive others of their property rights in order to protect their property rights. For example, there was the famous Sony rootkit scandal that essentially disabled your CD player. There are now demands by some people that ISP inspect (wire tap) packets (private mail) to see if there is infringing content.
It is deplorable that some huff and puff with great moral indignation about supposed stealing when they themselves have virtually no regard for due process and the law.
Nate Y:
I think I see your point. I trade my book for your CD and therefore you can do as you wish with my book. You could read it, give it away, or burn it.
I guess the problem I would have is if you copied the entire book and sold it as yours. That would plagerize my work.
Of course you could copy certain passages in the development of one of your books, but my name would have to be cited in your works cited page. It is at least common courtesy.
Does this help at all with my POV?
Cheers,
Aaron
I pay for movies I rent, because I like encouraging people to make movies I want to watch.
Sure you can pirate movies, but its better to pay people to make stuff you like.
Aaron,
That kinda helps. You are actually arguing two completely separate points. The first is about property rights and the second is about plagiarism. As we have seen, there is no justification for the extension of property rights after an item has been sold/traded. The property rights transfer to the buyer/trader.
As for plagiarism. I am not really aware of the anti-piracy campaigns arguing that the pirates are plagiarizing the books, music, movies, whatevers. Indeed, I don’t think any of the so-called pirates are attempting to pass off the music or whatever as their own. But even if they were, not plagiarizing the work of another is exactly as you said. It is a matter of common courtesy. And it isn’t (nor should it be) illegal to be rude and inconsiderate.
Nate Y:
MW defines plagerism as:
“to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own”
I think the pirates are doing this when they copy movies and sell them.
Anyway, I heartily enjoy the LvMI and enjoy and agree with basically all aspects of Austrian thought.
Aaron
Aaron,
The problem here is that the “pirates” aren’t selling the movies or whatever as their own. I have yet to download an album or anything that doesn’t credit the original artist. Even if someone tried to pass off Muse’s latest album as his/her own, he/she hasn’t done anything illegal. He certainly has poor manners and I (along with many others) would shun his behavior and call him out on it. That’s the proper way to deal with plagiarism. Again, as you said, it is a matter of common courtesy.
“No I wouldn’t steal a car… but if my buddy called me up and said, ‘Hey, I bought this new car and I can burn you a copy if you want!’ I might have to think twice about that.” Some quote I’ve seen before, apparently by some guy on Last Comic Standing. Maybe I owe him royalties for that
for a good discussion on copyright go to the following link. Russ Roberts of George Mason University talks to the author of the book “Digital Barbarism”
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/06/helprin_on_copy.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/green-p1.html
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