Pirate needs 200k video views to avoid being sued
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Lots of online comment (and views of the video[1]) are supportive of the guy and are viewing to remove the threat of him being financially ruined (it's almost at the 200,000 as I type).
MS just come across as intentional bullies and thugs (I'm paraphrasing comments made elsewhere rather than stating an opinion) and that's probably way more damaging to them than any of their make believe financial damages ever could be.
The BSA have a long track record of trying to game search engines and cause reputational damage to those they sue but I expect, in the long run, the 'pirate' will have more harm caused by long forgotten facebook postings than by the BSA. The world has moved on and the BSA have failed to even notice they've been left behind.
I'm tucking this one away as an example for the times I need to give examples of brain-dead stupid stuff that people who don't understand the internet, do, thinking they're being super clever and showing their super skills/exacting revenge etc.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKjPutIlBCA
[edit:spelling]
This action nearly forces the audience to sympathize with the poor man who is under attack from Big Co. They advertise themselves as the bad guys.
To most copyright is just some made-up bullshit for the purpose of squeezing money from honest people.
Are IP holders getting revenue from large businesses paying them to use their IP, or are said businesses just having their legal teams verify that their clone is just right on the cusp of infringing so they can still reuse others work without credit but instead through exploit loopholes in the system they built?
Because we know very well that the largest utilization of copyright law today is to suppress the development of competitive products to existing media brands and content providers, especially online where the DMCA is an absolute policy of presumed guilt. I want to know where these perceived benefits even are, because they keep the discourse about how to fix copyright unproductive when half the people are defending it for... some reason?
Example: Donald Trump's popularity.
Law is written by a privileged few but is enacted by the everyday people who choose whether to obey and enforce it based on their conscience and incentives.
Laws aren't enforced by everyday people. They're enforced by, wait for it, law enforcement agencies.
We, the United States, live in a republic. If the majority of people think something it doesn't actually matter. The great thing about a republic is everyday Joe doesn't write the law. Nor should he. Because Joe isn't very smart.
The root of this isn't that copyright is a good idea that's been spoiled by human nature. The root implies that copyright itself is fundamentally baD. An opinion that I respectfully disagree as strongly as can be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmZm8vNHBSU
It's great to see it hitting nearly 400k views. I hope they hold up their end of the bargain.
Good catch!
I really don't know if to punish people by such a humiliation is a good way to go. That movie is going to be played like one of those short movies you play in the theatre before the main movie. Soon, everybody here will know the man, imagine being him and walking on the street..
And because of the history of the BSA, the company that sue the guy, you cannot be sure, if this video is not just some promotion of the BSA itself, which, by the way, does not have a legal status in the Czech Republic. Company's scandals and campaigns (if your neighbour uses illegal software, tell us and we give you 100 000 CZK [approx. 4 000 EUR] ) in past give whole thing a kind of stinky feeling..
* ( just kidding )
This was an out of court settlement so he could have said no.
I guess my point is that something being "out of court settlement" doesn't mean you have as much choice as it looks to somebody not in that position.
>Soon, everybody here will know the man, imagine being him and walking on the street..
I predict a lot of high-fives and free pints.
The market price for 200,000 "video" views is under EUR$600 if he buys cheap muted banner slots.
I wonder how they intend to verify the views.
If you're willing to pay more than that threshold, you can still certainly pay for YouTube views:
http://www.peopleperhour.com/hourlie/provide-3-000-full-leng...
> Instead, the companies said they would be happy to receive only a small payment and his co-operation in the production of the video.
This is literally the line the villain in movie is supposed to say.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111201/17275016947/anti-...
According to local media, it's facts cooking by BSA/Microsoft, there was no alternative punishment (on the contrary - the court said that Microsoft "damages" are bullshit, as well as a supreme court in a similar case before) etc.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
The video went viral (200k in 2-3 days), but probably not in the way BSA / Microsoft meant it.
If he were to put in reasonable effort into gaining the requisite number of views, and were to fall short of the goal, couldn't the same argument be made that acquiring 200,000 video views is not within his capabilities?
So there is no guarantee they would sue if he fails, no guarantee they would win if they sued, and they already admit he cannot pay even if they do sue and win.
The copyright mafia is also the gatekeepers on the consumer media empire. And those at the top are well lead to believe that copyright is meant to serve them, to make their business powerful and enforce their control of discourse and culture through it.
I mean, this case was about Microsoft. There have been dozens of documented incidents of Microsoft exploiting its power and law to their benefit over consumers, to crush competition, maintain and abuse monopoly, and manipulate discourse in their favor. Yet Windows remains king of the desktop, because there is no grassroots movement with any momentum to pressure OEM pc vendors that sell hardware in store to adopt anything else, and because Microsoft has successfully made a market of apathetic and inert users who do not understand the tools they use enough to see how they are being taken advantage of.
And that is billions of people. Those aren't the kind of folk to stop using Office or Outlook or Windows because of ethics. Same reason people flock in droves to Wal-Mart, Koch Industries, John Deere, BP and Exxon Mobil - ethics take a back seat to convenience and price, and we suffer in the long run by giving our agitators all the assets they need to get what they want willingly.
Doesn't that raise questions about the target audience, or at least about the perception of what the target audience looks like? When I choose to make a commercial that portrays my company in the most sinister way possible, on purpose, I have to weigh the image loss from that against the effectiveness of the scare.
> Yet Windows remains king of the desktop, because there is no grassroots movement with any momentum to pressure OEM pc vendors that sell hardware in store to adopt anything else
I'm not sure that's true anymore. It certainly was, in the past. I'm personally not a Windows user, but it seems to me that the foothold Windows has in different user groups is absolutely monumental, so churning out hardware with anything else pre-installed would encounter stiff resistance from the consumer side. That same loyalty does not exist for entertainment companies.
That's the 21st century version of Joseph K
Also, who exactly owns a license key? Is there a secondary market where I can sell my key to a third party? Because I have a buttload of Linux laptops with useless Windows license keys stickers on the side, and I'd sure like to be able to exchange them for value.
Is this true? I thought it was just a standard OEM key. The license wouldn't let you install it legally except on an OEM system, but I don't think there's checks in place in the installer to ensure it.
On newer computers there isn't a sticker at all since the license is stored on the hardware and pulled by the installer automatically.
I hear they've changed it on newer ones and pirates have switched almost entirely to KMS activation server emulation, so I assume something's different in Win8+.
UsedSoft vs Oracle (2012)
> The firms, which included Microsoft, HBO Europe, Sony Music and Twentieth Century Fox, estimated that the financial damage amounted to thousands of pounds, with Microsoft alone valuing its losses at 5.7m Czech Crowns (£148,000).
> But the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which represented Microsoft, acknowledged that Jakub could not pay that sum.
In addition to the financial settlement, the 30-year-old was also given a three-year suspended sentence.
MS did something similar in Poland two weeks ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpoPrPWMRT8
This is a Polish Microsoft anti piracy campaign equalling everyone who calls himself a Hacker to ISIS terrorist and pedophile :/ Thats right, they uploaded YT clips showing "hackers" in balaclavas collecting child porn.
They are doing it numerous times and generating new IP addresses each time.
But, ironically, one way to pass the requirement is to turn to cyber-criminals: hire a botnet to generate the bulk of the 200K views.
I really don't think this is going to have the effect they (the copyright holders and court) intended, and that's a good thing.
This, IMHO, is a very reasonable and workable solution to infringement.
I very strongly dislike the implied "lost sale" as damages argument, largely because the money "implied" simply isn't there on the scale referenced by the major content producers and distributors.
People, by and large, have fixed entertainment dollars. And they spend them, and the forms of entertainment compete. If, suddenly, there were no infringement, people would max out those dollars, maybe adding a few here and there.. But the billions simply aren't there.
The product of that would be much higher competition for entertainment, people choosing to consume less entertainment, and or choosing to self-entertain with more basic, human means.
When the little guy wants to get known in that environment, what do you think is going to happen?
They will give it away to a hungry audience, that's what will happen.
And that too is a reason for my strong dislike for the high financial penalties. Infringement isn't theft. The rights owner still has everything, and loses nothing. In fact, they still have the opportunity, potentially improved by the infringing act, to sell to the infringer, right along with everyone else, and in particular, who that infringer may recommend to, or share about.
I'm not saying it's right. It's not. I am saying a much more rational and real conversation needs to happen about these things. The equation to theft is actually doing us a lot of harm, due to bad discussions lead to bad law, and bad law leads to a state where it's not respected, etc... and that is where we are today.
Law that doesn't take into account the realities and dynamics won't be effective. It almost never is. And that discord drives people to reject it and ignore it, circumvent it...
Anyway, this is good! What it does do is improve on norms, and as Lessig tells us, regulation happens via law, physics, norms, money or markets.
Requiring people to demonstrate or help to improve on social norms can do a lot of good here, and it's time and energy better spent, IMHO.
I see jimrandomh talking about forced speech. Well, this kind of thing does further the conversation, and we all know the source of the speech and why it's happening. There is no need to be dishonest about any of it, and where we aren't, the better dialogs can happen.
I prefer this to bankrupting people.
I think this because of the imbalance of power. What he can expect to earn in a lifetime is a drop on the ocean for them.
Someone saddled with an impossible to pay sum may not continue in the same way, and who knows what we may have lost for doing that?