Piracy and Illegal Downloads

[Riggerjack]

Scouring Europe for anvils to ship to the US? How are those anvils arriving on North American shores and how are they delivered to their intended recipients? There's an entire elephant involved from beginning to end.

There is, and it's a different elephant. I'm happy to talk about the used anvil market, or my new favorite, old heavy manufacturing tooling coming out of the rust belt, but I didn't want to cause additional confusion. Perhaps a new thread?

[Campitor]

@Rigger

You're not being unclear but rather overly optimistic that pulling an elephant's tail will have positive outcomes that outweigh the negative consequences.

[jacob]

Given the season I'm guessing the elephant is white?

[Campitor]

Given the season I'm guessing the elephant is white?

We do the Yankee Swap mentioned in the wiki article. And if this thread truly was the white elephant game, it would be Rigger trying to hand me the undesirable gift and taking my valuable gift.

[Campitor]

There is, and it's a different elephant. I'm happy to talk about the used anvil market, or my new favorite, old heavy manufacturing tooling coming out of the rust belt, but I didn't want to cause additional confusion. Perhaps a new thread?

I'd love to hear about any antique equipment you may have restored. Fixing things is a hobby of mine especially if it means restoring a good tool or equipment to use. I'm guilty of binging restoration videos before I go to sleep. Create a thread and post some pics if you got one of those electric anvils used to pummel hot iron like hamburger meat.

[jacob]

In terms of relevance to this thread, this would refer to the original white elephant gift. "If you're not paying for it, you become the product" + "vendor lock-in" would be a white elephant(*) in terms of this no-IP XOR paywall world. That's the white elephant that paywall companies will offer to consumers, who will gladly accept it, because they're a bunch of cheap lazy bastards w/o foresight. I mean, we all did it already.

Since we already have something like this [split] today, we can see what will happen: If some amateur comes up with some marvelous invention, they are simply bought out and brought behind the paywall under a non-compete. The paywall side may even choose not to release the invention so as not to hurt their bottom line. Now, granted there are a few idealists who would reject $10-100M buyout or an immediate six-fig salary, but that's a low percentage.

I may be committing a fallacy of incredulity here, but I just can't imagine how it won't be possible for the entrenched powers to find a way to counter the loss of IP regulation. Almost all the work I've ever done has been with creating some form of IP ranging from creative commons to "I can't talk about it". There are definitely ways to control IP without relying on legal protection because some industries don't have it in the first place. So that will happen.

(*) E.g. you're free to innovate and make videos as an individual social media star, but realistically you can only do it on youtube. Ditto self-publish books; only on amazon. The strategy for the paywall side has been to own the platform. Sure, anyone can make up an alternative platform; but very few are using them, so they don't really matter.

[Campitor]

@Jacob

Good example (amongst many you've posted on this thread). There are no free lunches.

[Riggerjack]

In terms of relevance to this thread, this would refer to the original white elephant gift. "If you're not paying for it, you become the product" + "vendor lock-in" would be a white elephant(*) in terms of this no-IP XOR paywall world. That's the white elephant that paywall companies will offer to consumers, who will gladly accept it, because they're a bunch of cheap lazy bastards w/o foresight. I mean, we all did it already.

Looks like different words, describing the same things I was describing. Maybe I am missing something.

Since we already have something like this [split] today, we can see what will happen: If some amateur comes up with some marvelous invention, they are simply bought out and brought behind the paywall under a non-compete. The paywall side may even choose not to release the invention so as not to hurt their bottom line.

Wait, I think I heard about that. Something about a carburetor that lets cars run on water, right?

Seriously, why would anyone pay 8-9 figures for an invention they wouldn't produce and couldn't protect. There are far cheaper and more effective ways to make innovations go away.

I read your story about the unpublished financial innovations. I came to a different conclusion. What you described (or rather, what I understood) was what I would consider an exploit, rather than innovation. The difference being that an exploit is only good until the market understands what you are doing, and prices it in. The exploit works until people know about it. Protected IP or no, the last thing one would want in that case is documentation. I have a hard time seeing how that relates to file sharing, though, so maybe I missed something.

I may be committing a fallacy of incredulity here, but I just can't imagine how it won't be possible for the entrenched powers to find a way to counter the loss of IP regulation. Almost all the work I've ever done has been with creating some form of IP ranging from creative commons to "I can't talk about it". There are definitely ways to control IP without relying on legal protection because some industries don't have it in the first place. So that will happen.

That sounds a lot like:

industry will keep the top of the market,
And industry will retreat behind defensive barriers.

So I think we agree, again?

E.g. you're free to innovate and make videos as an individual social media star, but realistically you can only do it on youtube. Ditto self-publish books; only on amazon. The strategy for the paywall side has been to own the platform. Sure, anyone can make up an alternative platform; but very few are using them, so they don't really matter.

Yet.

[Riggerjack]

@ campitor

No, nothing that cool, yet. I was looking at 3 phase mills. And a few huge gantry cranes. I don't have a use for either, but maybe it's because I don't have one, yet. most of our heavy industrial equipment in the PNW is still in use, or logging oriented.

I bought my backhoe (case 580sk) as a broken down old machine, rebuilt the Dipper cylinder, and I am using it to clear land for my workshop. I have an old grey market plate compactor. I bought it trashed and old, it was a former rental unit. The engine blew, and finding parts was problematic. So I bought another, different grey market engine (with a 110v starter, no battery, plug in an extension cord, and fire it up, then unplug it). I was making an adapter plate, when I got a chance to buy a Bomag 55/65d, with problems. That's my newest project. I've never been much good with small engines, so this is an opportunity to fix that.

But really, I don't restore old tools, mostly I just fix em, and use em. When I'm done, sometimes they go into storage, and some get released into the wild, by way of the internet. The bomag will be released, I think. It's a nice tool, but I don't get enough use to hold onto it.

Really, I just brought up tooling as an example of looking at what happens in an economic space whan it gets abandoned. This doesn't get much academic research. But I find it very instructive. And it's very relevant to the topic, since I think it's clear that's where things are going for much of the currently occupied IP protected space.

[Riggerjack]

But check out Alec Steele on YouTube. Too much YouTube celeb production value for my tastes, but sweet shop...

Now compare and contrast that, with what was available 5 years ago.

Everything seems to be proceeding as I expected.

[Jason]

This is the most hair brained, amateurish, semi-informed discussion I have ever bothered to read through. Righteousness? The world has changed? Aristocracy and the history of patents? The Wright Brothers?

Really? Because the mode of distribution changed and certain products have to be re-priced? This thread is nothing more than a virtual pamphlet highjacked by an utter fucking crackpot who equates autobiography with argument. And by the way copyright and patents are not commensurate.

There is a pheonomenon called "second reality" where someone is so misguided in their basic understanding of the world that there is no reason to argue particulars. Maybe this shit works in the local motor refurbishing garage in podunk USA when standing on a stolen crank shaft holding court to the starry eyed over all crowd. But not in the court of laws. Damn. Just watch a video and read the piracy warning.

The internet is merely the 21 century version of the printing press. Instead of monks poring over texts and compiling Floralagia, books could be churned out in mass means. IP is not some fucking metaphysical game changer or entry into some weird, vague, amorphous eschaton. Its a simple evolution in capitalism and for the most part, capitalism and the laws regarding the protection of intellectual property has changed accordingly.

BTW - information and music are not tantamount i.e. freedom of information act vs. musical copyright laws. I would go through the other myriad false assumptions littered in this gun shack prophecy but reality beckons. Journalism died? Really. Or maybe the mode of distribution changed because and we read it in another format?

[Riggerjack]

@ Jason,

Nice flounce!

BTW - information and music is not the same.

Oddly, they are getting to be more and more similar. With convergence from both sides.

I would go through the other myriad false assumptions littered in this gun shack prophecy but reality beckons.

Well that's too bad. I was rather hoping you would go through the myriad of false assumptions in this gun shack prophecy. But you do what's right for you. I welcome your thoughts, phrased as you choose. Come back if you like.

[Jason]

Music and information are converging? Really. So who is this generation's Pete Seeger? Woody Guthrie? Bob Dylan? Phil Ochs?

You are like an industry manufacturing falsehoods. Maybe you should patent that.

[Riggerjack]

Really? Because the mode of distribution changed and certain products have to be re-priced?

Yes.

Change prices, change distribution, and the world changes to reflect those changes. Why wouldn't it?

Every change of one factor, creates ripples of change. Each of those changes is the start of a new change. One can get lost trying to track it all. One could mistake the change one is tracking to be the only significant change, but of course, everything is changing, all the time. One cannot predict changes from outside the framework, but they are there, nonetheless.

So what I am doing, is looking for patterns, and patterns of patterns. I'm looking for trigger points, where changing X affects Y, and Y is inelastic. Or where the direction of change in Y feeds back a positive change in X. Places where small changes have big effects.

There's nothing interesting like that in this field, so I haven't been back in 15 years. But it's always good to check one's work, so it's good to see that things are proceeding as expected.

Now reading over that, it reads like the ramblings of a madman. Maybe it is. but one can't be as far outside of the overton window as I live, and not at least consider that one is mad. It's at least a possibility.

So, I am throwing my mad ideas out into the world to see what happens when they get kicked. If you think I'm mad, that's not particularly useful, but if you think I'm wrong, that could be useful. Maybe you know I'm wrong, because of something I haven't considered. That's what I am looking for. Please don't hold back.

[Riggerjack]

Music and information are converging? Really. So who is this generation's Pete Seeger? Woody Guthrie? Bob Dylan? Phil Ochs?

I haven't a clue. Do you normally ask middle aged men about the music of "this generation"? That seems like it would generate some odd answers, but I don't have any for you. My models don't have that kind of resolution, and wouldn't be of much use at that scale.

You are like an industry manufacturing falsehoods. Maybe you should patent that.

We already have several of these. It seems we have elected one of them to the White House.

[Loner]

Here’s an interesting paper on the abolition of copyrights: http://www.culturelink.org/news/members ... yright.pdf

Amongst other things, it describes how the market might rearrange. Seems plausible to me. It also seems to align with what RJ was saying. I certainly agree that the current situation benefits big companies, and not the artists (and the public) themselves (save a few).

Some excerpts of interest.

The system is substantially more beneficial for cultural conglomerates than for the average artist
...
For most artists, the profits deriving from copyright do not form much of an incentive to create and perform artistic work, simply because they hardly receive the proceeds.
…
From an historical perspective, we may note that the concept of private intellectual property rights has traditionally been absent from most cultures. Yet, there have always been artists who created and performed works
…
The system disproportionately benefits a few famous artists and especially a few major enterprises, but it has little to offer for most creators and performers (Boyle, 1996:xiii; Drahos 2002: 15; Kretschmer 1999; Kretschmer and Kawohl 2004: 44, Vaidhyanathan 2003: 5). The copyright system does enable a handful of cultural enterprises to dominate the market, and to withdraw substantive diversity from the public eye
…
we should keep in mind, that cultural production and distribution will reshuffle considerably after the abolishment of copyright. For instance, in the field of music concerts and performances will become much more important, also as a source of income for the artists.
…
With our new system a new cultural market will emerge. The first observation is that with the abolition of copyright cultural conglomerates will lose their grip on the agglomeration of cultural products, with which they determine the outlook of our cultural lives to an ever-increasing extent. Because what will they lose? They have to give up control over huge chunks of the cultural markets. They lose the monopolistic exclusivity over broad cultural areas because everyone is allowed to exploit artistic materials that are not protected by temporary usufruct and absolutely no limitations are put on creatively adapting works of art. With these new conditions, the rationale is then lost for cultural conglomerates to make substantial investments in blockbusters, bestsellers, and stars
…
There will once again be room to manoeuvre in cultural markets for a variety of entrepreneurs, who are then no longer pushed out of the public’s attention by blockbusters, bestsellers, and stars. Those plentiful artists are more likely to find audiences for their creations and performances in a normal market that is not dominated by a few large players. There is not a single reason to believe that there would be no demand for such an enormous variety of artistic expressions. In a normalized market, with equal opportunities for everyone, this demand can be fulfilled. This increases the possibility that a varied flock of artists would be capable of extracting a decent living from their endeavours.

[Jason]

I'm just trying to get to the logic here. Or at least a basic semblance of fucking reality.

While the Chinese government has now co-opted technology to the point that its spying on its citizens 24/7, as Sergy Brin and Larry Page have now run off into the sunset with their billions of search engine money, as the internet has morphed into a black hole of porn and consumers buying stupid shit instantaneously, as Pay Pal, and Spotify, and Facebook and Amazon have minted millionaires and billionaires and soon to be trillionaires while hi-jacking our collective brainstems, it is really worthy of our time to contemplate how "Riggerjacks's Discarded and Worthless Industrial Equipment Co." is some tip-of-the-spear moment in a post-capitalistic, post property rights, post corporations spending gazillions to lobby the government for protections against the infringement of its patents and copyrights world? What am I missing here? Am I to think that in the world of Jay-Z and Madonna and Lady Ga Ga and Disney and Pfizer and ATT and Marvell and Universal and Sony and Alphabet and Facebook and Apple that these people are going to allow their worlds to be usurped by an underground army of preppers trading scrap metal for illegally downloaded bootlegs of "Take The Money and Run"? I mean seriously, what the fuck world are we living in to think this is even remotely feasible? It's Fred Sanford shit. Like we are on the cusp of a new order while we simultaneously pay our monthly internet bills? We used to have barbed wire. Now we have fire walls. We used to have bank robbers. Now we have internet hackers. We used to have robber barons now we have internet moguls. What the fuck has actually changed here? I don't see a democratizing effect or a equalizing effect. I see the same basic human tendencies already having risen to the nth degree. I mean really, the SS Berners-Lee has long since sailed. Oh, wow, Wikipedia ended the Encyclopedia Salesman career. Yeah, well Henry Ford put the horse shoe guy out and Thomas Edison killed the pony express trade and well, endless regression. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

[Campitor]

My point in this entire discussion is this: intellectual property's dissemination to the masses requires the existence of a large infrastructure and that infrastructure has a cost and also provides wages at various income levels. When you steal intellectual property you're stealing a bit out of everyone's hand who is part of that infrastructure. Eventually the loss of revenue will be large enough to make the entities involved in that infrastructure react.

And in regards to the claims that people have been creating before IP law existed I offer the following. It's true that humans have been prolific creators before IP laws were created - but how much did they make back then? Can anyone name an ancient artist that became rich without a patron, king, or merchant financing their endeavours? Ancient engineering technology was often controlled by a guild or monarch with severe consequences for sharing technology or inventions outside of their kingdom or guild affiliations.

The control and hoarding of information has been in existence since the 1st caveman found the best fishing hole and hunting grounds. The death of IP will not stop the hoarding of information or stop large organizations from monetizing it. In fact, I suspect the loss of IP laws will have an outsized benefit to corporations because they have the resources to be first in delivering it to the market at scale.

[Jason]

Eventually the loss of revenue will be large enough to make the entities involved in that infrastructure react.

You want to license a song to be in a commercial. The company advertising has to pay the advertising company in order that they pay the publishing company for the use of the copyright who pays the writers of that song as well as the record company that owns the master rights to the recording of the song who has to pay the musicians who performed on the track as well as the television station(s) that the commercial is going to be played on who in turn has to pay the performing rights society who pays the writers every time the commercial airs on TV. Now think of the advertising executives and their creative team and their ad buyers and the lawyers and the licensing agents and the music executives and the writers and the performers and the publishers and the record companies and the television stations and the actors in the commercial and the catering company that feeds the actors in the ad. Now think of Microsoft as the company and the Rolling Stones "Start Me Up" as the song being used to launch the new version of Windows and proceed to explain to the world that the era of its righteous regard for intellectual property based on an anachronistic Medieval period conception of ownership has reached its terminus.

[Scott 2]

You can see the reactions of IP holders already. An example - I like to watch UFC. The pay per views sell for $60+. They are filled with ads, integrated throughout the content. Pirate streams are trivial to find. I bet they are the majority of viewership.

Then existing pay per view customer has to decide - do I pay double? It's not like they can opt out of the ads. Are they a sucker if they cling to the old payment model?