Polonius3: Do you people (and give a straight answerffor once) favour: -- the flood of fake and counterfeit (mostly 'Made in China' but not exclusively)? products flooding the world market ?
Products are flooding the world market because there is a demand for cheap products. I am sure you don't own made in Germany and Made in USA/Japan products but Made in China and Made in Korea/Taiwan. I at least own some expensive Japanese and American products because I am happy to pay extra for better quality but do you do that?
-- composers, artists, film directors , actors and other creative people being deprived of their rightful royalties and effectviely have their intellectual property stolen?
It's not self evident that these people have rightful royalties. Rightful royalties are a 17th century construct. There were no loyalties prior to this - instead we had folklore, folk music, folk dress, folk culture and folk customs. The world survived then. Artists had patrons or were paid per performance. Secondly most artists do not make loyalties because publishers such as Sony Music or Warner Brothers hold the copyright and enforce a cartel like monopoly with differential pricing, availability and released dates. Some products never make it outside of their borders. Artists don't get paid but middlemen do. Thirdly why should the artist be allowed to profit from an idea he stole from someone else? Most ideas are stolen from someone else. Is there really anything genuinely original ever? Most books, films, games, music is a copy of something else. Often it is pilfered from public domain. Most people get paid while they work but for some reason an artist is allowed to get paid many times over for the same thing while doing nothing new. This model seems unfair and its not self evidently true why it should be so. In fact it probably reduces innovation. Why make a new product when I can get paid for my old work, many times over? But as said, most artists aren't even that lucky.
Do you pay your plumber for the pipes he installed in your house every month? Do you have to ask him permission before you share your toilet with guests? What if you run a hotel? Do you pay a different rate and a subscription for the plumber's job? No. He worked, he got paid for it. End of story.
With the internet there is a new opportunity for artists to eliminate the middle men and sell directly to the public. Also, piracy = free advertising. It's been shown in research studies that piracy increases sales. Look at Adobe Photoshop. Look at Bill Gates, when he said that he'd prefer the Chinese pirate MS products instead of competitors'. Why? Because one day these people will decide to move to a legitimate source and guess which choice they'll choose - yes Windows, MS Office and Adobe Photoshop (the products they know). Look at the success of the Japanese animation industry because of fansubbing piracy. Japanese producers who had no intent to market to the outside world were surprised when people started buying their CDs, laserdiscs, DVDs, merchandise, clothing, etc.
The current media business is outdated and needs to either evolve or face extinction. Differential pricing, purposeful unavailability and other artificial restrictions should be done away with. Sites like iTunes, Gog.com and Crunchyroll.com have managed to find a way to make profits despite high piracy rates. These sites sell content at prices people are more willing to pay. Sadly the Media industry with the protection of state organs can get away with outdated practices because they will just legislate competition away, instead of using piracy as free advertising and selling digital downloads for a reasonable fee as soon as the product is available. Most people want to pay for things they like but sadly currently this is often impossible - product not available and will never be available in given region, or the price is too high, e.g. a CD with only one good song costs $20, while iTunes has the one good song for $1. Sadly iTunes is not available internationally. Such artificial restrictions should be done away with. DVDs, XBOX games and Blurays have region restrictions so even if you order from a foreign website you are blocked!
And if these businesses and artists et al don't want to adapt, then they should close down their business. They should no longer be in business and then there will be no more piracy on the internet. I think this option is preferable to internet policing and censorship.
-- having an 'anything goes' approach to the Internet where anonymous individuals can engage in libel with impunity (they couldn't get away with that on radio, TV or the press!) ,show how to construct bombs with household porducts, promtoe terrorism, run hate sites, glamourise incest, paedophilia and zoophilia as well as many other socially despicable activities?
-- turning hackers who jeopardise the national security of countries by disabling defence and other sensitive official sites hailed as heroes and saviours?
This is false. We don't have anything goes at present. For one child porno is outlawed and pornographers are prosecuted and sent to jail. For another sites like MegaUpload which profited from piracy can and have been shut down with ACTA. Thirdly certain types of speech are illegal. Inciting violence or spreading national secrets will get you arrested. You can be found online.
National defense systems do not need (and should not) to be connected to the internet, in fact none are. What is often hacked are portals of public sites. And hacking can be prosecuted under current laws. How would you like the police to stop your car and search you every hour because somewhere someone is shoplifting? It's not necessary and it's unwelcome. Why should my freedom be held hostage because some shop is being robbed or some Hollywood publisher refuses to change his business model? There are laws against criminals already. Sites which glamorize pedophilia are being shut down and offenders arrested. It's very easy. DMCA take downs do work and copyrighted contents are taken down from file sharing sites.
ACTA has admittedly not been publicly consulted and mayl contain various snags and loopholes. But the ratificaton process is an extended one and all the kinks should get ironed out eventually. If not, it will not be accepted by the EP or national parliaments, so why the big stink?!
milky
Why not have a big stink? Why should only politicos be allowed to make a stink? And if ACTA does not bother you, why are you making a big stink yourself?
The copyright system needs reform. Businesses which refuse to do so, should move over to an alternative form of business. This is how capitalism works, if you don't adapt you fail. Look at all the blacksmiths and horsewhip manufacturers who went bankrupt when cars and trains came out. The internet makes distribution different and businesses have to get with it.
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