RUNIC CIPHER'S PROFILE

I think the Law has blurred the lines of what is piracy. The copyright holders want to squeeze as much money out of the products the publish as possible. But at the same time, they hype the shit out of everything they expect to make money, regardless of quality. Please bear in mind that the Publisher is not the same as the person or group that created the product. Every Publishers wettest dream would consist of charging every person that hears even a portion of any song that they've published every single time they hear it, unless it is on the Radio.

I believe there is a big difference between their definition of Piracy and the common man's definition of Piracy. They would have Piracy defined as recording a song off of the Radio using an 8-Track Tape (if any of you even know what that is, dont raise your hands all at once). However, the Common Man would define Piracy as someone claiming to be the Creator of said content, and distributing it for profit. I take a Final Fantasy game, maybe hack it, take out everyone's name but my own, slap my name on it, then try to sell it as being MY product, that in my definition is Piracy.

I think most of us agree that Piracy is benefiting somehow from the distribution of a product that isnt technically yours. I download a movie off of some website while it is still in theaters, burn several DVD's of the movie, then sell them, I dont pay the Studios any money, the content creators a dime, and tell the Publishers they can go piss into the wind. That is what I believe is Piracy. Downloading a song off the internet for Personal Use, I.E. you don't sell it, to me, is the same as listening to it on the Radio. You can listen to a song on the Radio, if you are willing to put up with commercials, or pay a subscription fee to Satellite Radio, but for all practical purposes, you are listening to it for free. The Radio Station can not guarantee that you will listen to the Commercials. The Radio Station affords its operating costs by either Commercials or Subscriptions (Satellite). From the Commercial percpective, the Advertiser would prefer that you listen to their Commercials rather than the content that attracted you to that station to begin with. Same thing goes for TV.

Now, something has changed in the last century. But lets think about what changed. Content Producers still want people to view or listen to their content. The Consumer wants to view the Content that the Content Producers produce. But getting that media (visual, audio, book, or game) from the Content Producer to the Consumer used to require a Middle Man. A TV station. A Radio Station. A Satellite Radio Station. A Game Publisher. A Book Publisher. A Cinema. Theater. Etc. Etc. Etc. What has changed in the last several years is that we have found ways to cut out the Middle Man, and the Middle Man is not happy about that.

Another topic to focus on is that Media used to be a One Way Street. Publishers were the ones who controlled which bands played, which movies made it into Theaters, which books and games got published. With the Internet, the Media has shifted from being completely controlled by the Publishers to being nearly entirely controlled by the Consumers, which is what allowed us to cut out the Middle Men. We self generate the response and demand for the content. We utilize social networks, forums, chat rooms, text msgs, and every other advantage the Interwebs have to offer us to communicate with each other as to what kinds of content are worth half a squirt of piss and what is the best content out there. We no longer listen to Movie Critics to tell us to go see movies that suck while they pan and criticize anyones product that hasnt bought their influence. We all know that the Major Middle Men are so heavily influenced that their reviews and recommendations can not be trusted. We know that you and I have nothing to lose or gain by giving a good movie a good review and a shitty movie a shitty review. We are as completely honest and unbiased about calling something what we feel it really is. And that is a massive threat to the Middle Men.

The Middle Men gained so much power, money and influence before the Internet when the could tell us what to pay for and what not to pay for that they ended up being the ones who funded most of the products. That influence still lingers, but is quickly diminishing. They've resorted to trying to assert themselves as being important in the industry by Lobbying for stricter Anti Piracy Laws and DRM to try to persuade us to continue to think that they are still important. The Middle Men are no longer important in the Age of the Internet. They are going the way of the Dinosaur and the Dodo Bird and Print Media. They are Extinct. They just havent realized it yet. The Age when the Middle Men controlled your content is Over.

The Future is the Consumers. We control which companies sink and swim based on our unbiased opinions. The Content Producers dont need the self-important Middle Men to distribute their content. We have a direct line of communication with the Content Producers to tell them what we want, what we dont want, and what our opinions are of their content. In that respect, absolutely nothing has changed in regards to the relationship between the Content Producers and the Consumers. Content Producers still want to produce content, and consumers still want to consume their content. The consumers will still pay for content when they believe that the Content Creator will be the one to benefit from paying for it. However, most of us could really give a shit less if the Publishers get paid. We dont need Publishers any more to get our content. But, the Publishers, the Middle Men have continued to try to maintain their importance in the relationship between the Creators and Content Producers and we the Consumers.

The Publishers are usually the ones that suffer the most from Piracy, when in fact I believe it is the Publishers that are committing the greatest Piracy of all. They have twisted the law to turn us into Criminals and themselves into Heroes. They get paid for distributing content that they did not create. They claim that any content that any Content Producers produce is their Intellectual Property. I believe the Middle Men are the REAL Pirates. They take our money, money that we want the Content Producers to have. They steal the Content from the Content Producers, claim it as their own, and "sell rights to License" the use of that material. They steal both the Content and the Money. The Publishers and Middle Men are Parasites. They are the Criminals. They are the Real Pirates. I would be tempted to say that there is only ONE fact that makes what they do as being Legal, and that is the Agreement between the Content Producers and the Publishers, but alas, I can not even say that. The Content Producers are so desparate and the Publishers (Middle Men) are so greedy for even more money that they bully and pretty much force the Conetnt Producer to give them absolutely everything that they work to create.

We always complain that DRM screws over the Consumer. But what we dont gripe about is the Content Producers point of view, where in order for them to get funding from the Publisher, they have to sign over 80% of the profits of their Intellectual Propert over to the Publsiher, as well as the rights to the Intellectual Property as well. So we have DRM on the side of the Consumers there to screw us over, but the Content Producers get just as screwed over. The Consumers outnumber the Content Producers, so often their voices are drown out in the sea of DRM rants. However, look at the real cause of the problem. The Real Cause of the problem is neither the Consumer or the Content Producer, but the Middle Men. The Publishers. Both DRM that screws the Consumer and Legalized Theft frmo the Content Producers are inventions of the Publishers in order for them to maintain a fading presence in a fully digital world.

I went to a Nine Inch Nails concert about ten years ago, where I stuck around after the show to get Trent Reznor's autograph. When I met him, I shook his hand, and gave him twenty bucks. I told him that I pirated his last CD, but since I knew he was coming to town, I'd rather give Trent the money personally and his Publisher didnt deserve a bigger chunk of the profit for the Content he created. He was a little puzzled, but graciously accepted the money, said "Thank you", gave me the CD (which I already pirated) and he autographed, and moved on to sign his next fan's CD. He didn't seem to troubled by the fact that not only I flat out told him I pirated his music I think because not only did I buy that CD right then and there, but he got an extra twenty bucks on top of me now having a legitimate copy of his music. I dont know if that had anything to do with Trent's decision to try a different method of distribution and changed his stance on Piracy or not, but it might have. Now, I just referred to buying his music to be legitimate, however, that is the Legal Definition, and not my opinion. As far as I am concerned, that so called "legitimate copy" is about as illegitimate as you can possibly get. Trent got screwed, and I got screwed out of my effort to pay Trent for the copy. Now, I wont deny that a CD is physical media and someone has to produce a CD, then go through the effort of copying the music onto that CD. The CD producer does deserve a share for having done some work, but when I can just go to NIN's website, make a financial exchange for me to have a copy of his music, I call that a Legitmate Copy. The CD's were usually produced and manufactured by the now defunct Publisher. The Publisher that overcharges NIN for the production of their CD's. Then, the Publisher who creates the CD wants to put screwy software on those CD's (Sony Rootkit) to keep us from "Pirating" what they've already stolen from the Content Producers. That to me is NOT a Legitimate Copy.

Let me change the subject for a minute. There is a Big Difference between what I will start referring to as Static Media and Dynamic Media. The difference between the two is that Static Media is something like a Movie, a Song, a Book, or something that you can NOT interact with. Dynamic Media would include Games and Software. I think there is a big difference between the definitions of Piracy for each. The examples that I provideded earlier where I listen to a Song (Static Media) on the Radio is not considered Theft or Piracy, as I can listen to it for free. However, when I play a Game (Dynamic Media) that I download, I have no other way to interact or observe tht type of Media than to be directly involved with it. I can't listen to a Video Game on the Radio, or watch it on TV. I can only play it on my computer, or what ever electronic device I need to play said Media. That to me does meet a definition of Theft, but not necessarily Piracy. Piracy is to benefit from the distribution of someone elses content. Essencially Pirates act as the Middle Men where they act as Publishers, but never agreed with the Content Producers to give them one Red Cent.

This is where I think a lot of people are not making the association of what really is theft, based on what type of Media they are observing or interacting with. I dont feel that if you download a song off the internet for free without paying either the Content Producer or the Publisher that it constitues Theft because you can observe that Media without having to pay for it. The Content Producers still get paid regardless if we pay for a subscription to Satellite Radio, or just listen to it on the Radio subsidized by Commercials. Dynamic Media on the other hand can ONLY be interacted with as that is its ONLY form of entertainment. Game Makers dont get paid if someone watches a video of someone else playing their game on YouTube, they only get paid when we the consumers buy the content they produced, and even then, they dont get their fair share, unless they've figured out that they dont need the Publishers any more.

Thus, Downloading Songs, Movies, and TV Shows = Not Illegal, Downloading Games = Illegal, but not Piracy. The Real Pirates are the Publishers who steal the Content from the Content Producers as their own, and profit from it.

Thoughts and reactions? Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not? Debate.