How long do patents last?

[ams511]

Tigerman,

I agree totally with you that just because someone downloaded something that they would have bought it anyway. However, when you download a song or a movie using a bit torrent client you also let others copy from you. That is how the media companies find you and were they claim you cost them thousands of dollars.

I have no love for the record companies. For years people purchased records, tapes, or cd's, physical products which when broke needed to be repurchased. If your record became scratched or tape got eaten then you were out of luck and needed to buy a new item. There was no idea that you owned anything other than a physical product. Enter Napster and now you can download a file without any physical product. To many people this was not stealing as there is no physical product. Also the record companies were not selling these files so Napster was not really competing with them. Suddenly now the record companies shifted their position that music is not a physical product but something else. In other words, they changed their tune (pun intended).

 

[daniel1948]

Daniel1948 and Tigerman,
We're not talking about music, intelectual property, books, or poetry, we're talking about a piece of dive gear that has not been made for quite a few years and they are not sold new anymore. Even if I did decide to pop these things out by the hundreds it wouldn't effect AL one bit because they no longer make them therefore there is no way I'm cutting in on their action.

Agreed. And since the patent has expired, it's a non-issue.

I said nothing about wether it was "right" or "wrong" to make copies, I stated that there is a major part missing in the reasoning and thats the part where I would have bought the product if I didnt copy it.
Even if I put a new movie on a public website for anyone who please to download the publishers of that movie DOES NOT lose money everytime someone download the movie.
They lose money only on some of the downloads, namely the ones made by people who would have otherwise seen it in the theatres or bought it and thinking thats "all downloaders" is just arrogant beyond belief.

Now once I SELL a pirated copy theres a good reason to believe that everyone who buys the pirated copy would have spent money on the authorized product.. If the price is right.

The whole unauthorized copying mess is a lot more neuanced than what RIAA, MPAA their buddies prefer to dream up where every single copy is not only one lost sale, but thousands..

We may not be all that far apart then: I agree that not every illegal download is a lost sale; and you seem not to be arguing whether it's right or wrong.

I have no love for record companies, either. I think their actions have been misguided. But I DO believe STRONGLY that a writer OWNS his creation, and that copying it without paying the royalty for your copy is THEFT. The fact, which I do not argue, that not every illegal download is a lost sale, does not change the fact that you have made a copy of something which you do not own, and taken for your own use the creation of another person without payment. If the copy is really of no value, why did you copy it? If it has value to you, because you wanted to listen to or read it, then the decent thing is to pay the author so he can continue the work of creation, which you found of value. Otherwise, he is working for you for nothing.

When something is available for free it reduces the incentive to buy it, and that hurts the author, who now gets less for his work. This is true even though SOME of the people who take it for free would not have bought it.

 

[duckbill]

:bored2:

Are we back on track now? (I hope)

 

[VooDooGasMan]

I hope so I do not listen to music.