Wikipedia protest shutdown

Discussion in 'World Events' started by arfa brane, Jan 17, 2012.

  1. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Which has this post:
    Source

    And links to this post:
    Source

    And the conflict alluded to in that post is precisely what the hubub is about, precisely why people object to the DMCA, precisely what got this whole conversation started, and part of the reason why people objected to SOPA/PIPA as they were phrased.

    But for some reason, some people can't see the conflict.
     
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  3. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    A market that is declining by 10% every year, for years on end, is not "healthy" regardless of what dollar figure it currently stands at. DVD's - and BluRay - will go the way fo the dodo soon enough.

    Regardless, you're - typically - pursuing an irrelevant tangent. You claimed that the proliferation of video-capable devices that lacked disc drives indicated that "millions and millions" of people are ripping DVDs. But you've been shown that video disc sales have been in serious decline for years now, and that streaming video and online sales have been surging - to the point where a single streaming service consumes 1/3 of all internet traffic - and this accounts for the proliferation of video on disc-less devices.

    So you are left with zero substantial evidence for your claim of "millions and millions of people" doing DVD ripping. This is why nobody takes your unbacked claims seriously.
     
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  5. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    Different, but not totally unrelated. For instance, I like these:

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    but since Converse was sold to Nike, and they're no longer made in New England, and they're quality has declined considerably, etc., I buy these instead:

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    http://www.autonomieproject.com/502-fair_trade-footwear.html


    I didn't say that you shouldn't buy it--you can do whatever you please.

    I'm just not clear as to why you wish to cheapen the notion of "supporting" something, and render such virtually meaningless. Seriously, who buys cheap sweatshop shit from WalMart, and then claims that they are "supporting sweatshop workers"?

    Other than you, that is. And perhaps your "fully grown kids" who still watch The Little Mermaid.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2012
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  7. Bells Staff Member

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    We have a lot of US members. The contents of those sites are also illegal in many other countries, including member States of the EU (where any software which circumvents the CSS on a DVD is illegal). And I can assure you, if a movie studio that owns the rights to a movie finds out someone is ripping their DVD's in another country, they would go after them.

    Because, Arthur, what I said was personal and very much hypothetical. I did not once say it was legal, nor did I provide links on how to kill someone and try to claim those links were legal. I did not advocate killing paedophiles, nor did I advocate the legality of such actions. You, on the other hand, are linking sites with illegal content (and you are still doing it, even after your warning) and telling people it is legal to have such software (the software itself is illegal by the way) and saying millions of people rip DVD's.

    Can you understand the difference now?

    So now you are trying to advocate that bomb making is legal?

    And yet, the content of such sites are illegal.

    You mean a link to a magazine which is discussing how many sites are breaking the law and naming and virtually shaming them? That's what you are going to go with? And James did tell you to remove them (and to not post more again, which it appears you have done so). That is what the warning is for.

    The article also states that those sites were either removed or they deleted any mention of software that allows one to circumvent CSS on DVD's because it is illegal.

    I'm sorry, but I need to ask. Are you incapable of reading and comprehending that the article clearly states that software which bypasses the CSS encryption on DVD's is illegal to distribute in the US?

    The software is also illegal in Europe. Sorry Arthur, but your argument fails.

    Okay..

    Why in the world are you linking a site which explains how to break the law and rip movies? I ask because you were warned about posting such links on this site already.

    So the warnings at the start of DVD's which tells you it is illegal to bypass its CSS encryption (ie do not copy and do not copy and distribute the contents of that DVD) escaped your notice?

    You're just ripping DVD's and bypassing the security encryption to do it.

    And apparently one of the reasons is because your grown up children like to watch The Little Mermaid. I have to say, you have no idea of the level of self control I am exerting to not comment on that.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2012
  8. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    3,270
    Heh. Towards the bottom of that article:
    What??? Wikipedia is asserting that such software is not legal. Hopefully Arthur will set them straight.
     
  9. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Don't matter for this discussion

    We are talking about DVD sales since the DMCA was passed and that's a huge number.

    And clearly it is still healthy, here are the Blu-Ray sales for one week.

    http://www.the-numbers.com/weekly-bluray-sales-chart

    Here are the DVD sales for one week.

    http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/weekly/thisweek.php

    Seems to be very healthy sales.

    Annual sales look to be on the order of 140+ million, with over 30 million BlueRay sales

    And taken with this posted from 7 years ago:

    DVD Ripping Flourishes
    Hollywood's attempts to stamp out DVD copying are circumvented by the proliferation of DVD-duplication tools.

    Which included this tidbit:

    Over one million copies of 321 Studio's DVD X Copy were sold

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/119549/dvd_ripping_flourishes.html

    And since then a LOT more companies and products have come into the business.

    So yeah, my assertion that millions and millions of DVD copies are being made is a reasonable conclusion.
     
  10. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Millions of people also buy illicit drugs. Doesn't mean it's legal.
     
  11. Bells Staff Member

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    So you have ripped The Little Mermaid so that your grown up children can still watch it?

    Are you aware that fair use does not cover distributing the copied version? In other words, fair use is for your own personal use and not your children's?
     
  12. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    So, the sites are still legal.

    No Bells you are an officer of the court and you assured someone that they would not be prosecuted for murder and there was nothing hypothetical about your statement.

    You should be ashamed of yourself.

    Really can't get it straight can you Bells.

    You said making EXPLOSIVES.

    Then when I point out that thousands of people legally make explosives and there are plenty of legal sites on the internet explaining how to make them you CHANGE what I posted and use BOMBS.

    Not quite the same thing Bells.

    In SOME places.
    But the site itself is not illegal to link to.
    And it was important to the discussion.
    Even now our ability to even discuss this topic is hampered by this silly and totally meaningless censorship of sites anyone can find with about 15 key strokes.

    Do you not see the difference?

    Now you want to give me a warning for posting to a Wikipedia article?

    Are you fucking kidding me?

    As to the article you posted, it doesn't matter if you think it was shaming them, but it was telling those reading it (with links) exactly where to go to get the software and how to use it.

    No the article had LIVE links to sites that explained exactly how to make copies of DVDs and BlueRay disks.

    I'd post the relevant part of the article with the hot links, but knowing the mods on this site, I'd get a warning for doing so.

    I've linked to no such site, I linked to a Wiki article,which isn't selling anything.

    Nope, the same warnings are on VHS tapes as well, they just don't apply to copies made under fair use.

    Yes, under fair use, Circumvention isn't Infringement
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2012
  13. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Nope, it's on VHS

    My youngest daughter (who is a grown woman) still lives with me.
    She took the movie to the beach when we went last summer and about a dozen people watched it and had a good time doing so.

    The issue I was bringing up had to do with the fact that good movies stand the test of time.

    Yes I am aware, and I have not copied any DVDs that have left my possession.
     
  14. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Of course, I've never made the claim that the fact that millions of people make copies of their DVDs means it is legal to do so.

    The claim is that millions of people make personal copies or shift formats and have been doing so for over a decade since the DMCA was passed and not one of them has been taken to court for doing so.

    Such is clearly NOT the case with illicit drugs.
     
  15. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    So you've got one million copies sold, worldwide, and then the company gets shuttered and since then no software with CSS-bypass capabilities has been legally available in the USA. Still seems short of "millions and millions do this every day."

    No, it's the opposite. Since then, it has become impossible to legally purchase DVD ripping software in the USA.

    Regardless, let's note that this is still a bunch of speculation and that you are trying to sneakily define down the expectations:

    I didn't ask whether it was "reasonable" in the absence of real data. I asked you to provide actual citations that establish how much of this is actually going on. All you've come up with is a bunch of hand-waving about how many DVDs and and copies of a software package have been sold. This is far from conclusive.

    Quite likely, you are unable to provide convincing data on usage patterns for the exact same reason as the MPAA finds it impossible to build a case against individual DVD rippers (who don't share the results): there is really no way to know such things with much certainty.
     
  16. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
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    Yes you have. That is exactly the crux of your entire position for umpteen pages now. You are currently right in the middle of arguing major portions of it (that millions of people are doing it, and that no other comparable "unenforced law" has ever existed). You have made that claim explicitly - literally - dozens of times in this thread.

    I recommend you retract this lie, before you get confronted with an avalanche of quotes of yourself making exactly the claim you deny making.

    And you then infer that such implies it must be legal, or they'd be getting taken to court. You have repeatedly and emphatically rejected every other explanation for that outcome. Nobody has challenged the observation that ripping happens and that people who do so only for personal use have not been taken to court and are not likely to be.

    If you make no claims beyond that - if you do not present the above as evidence of actual legality - then you are in perfect agreement with everyone else in this thread when it comes to the lack of prosecutions of such individuals.

    So which is it? Do you, in fact, agree exactly with myself, Trippy, etc. or are you presenting this as evidence of legality? Because if it's the former, then one wonders why in the hell you've been making exactly that an issue of contention. And if it's the latter, well, you're telling bald-faced lies in your post there.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2012
  17. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    But their contents are illegal.

    Firstly, I am retired.

    Secondly, I said that no judge or jury would imprison someone for doing what the father did in the OP. I have yet to find a single case where one was sentenced to prison time in the rare occasion such a crime was committed in the past. He [the father in the OP] was charged, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was placed on probation. Do you understand now?

    I did not advocate that it was legal to do what he did, nor did I provide links on how to do what he did.

    My comments about what I would do if I was ever placed in such a situation were very much hypothetical. Again, do you understand now?

    So bombs don't fall under the banner of 'explosive devices'?

    That's a new one.

    So because it may be legal in, say, Afghanistan for example, you think you are legally justified in posting links to it here? Are you aware that some countries (including Australia) actually block such sites because the content of such sites are illegal (such as bomb making sites)?

    I was talking about the link that comes after this comment, a link which tells readers where to go if they want to steal movies from legitimate online movie sites. I meant the link after this:

    It wasn't the wiki site that I was commenting on, and you know it. So please, don't play stupid with me.

    To sites which had the offending software removed and also to discuss how such sites were still breaking the law. Really, reading and comprehension is that hard for you to grasp?

    Oh, so you have deleted the link which tells people how to steal movies from an online movie site?

    Bypassing security encryption to rip movies is not legal and is not covered under fair use.

    Which I guess is only in your household, since as everyone else here has spent a ridiculous amount of pages pointing out to you that is not really the case.
     
  18. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Well that's exactly what it appears you are saying.

    Like I said, I have no control over the deals artists make with their labels but I don't see how NOT buying their music helps them.

    And no matter how bad the deal they made with their label is, buying their music is pretty much the only way most people can show support for an artist.
     
  19. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    You mean she broke the law?

    Right.. Because The Little Mermaid falls into the 'good movie' category...

    Just VHS movies which was then taken out of your possession and distributed to your daughter which was then shown to "about a dozen people"...

    *Snort*

    God damn precious!

    Yes you have.

    Does not mean it is not illegal.

    You have been carrying for over 20 pages now about how legal it is to rip DVD's, you provided links to websites which sell illegal software which would allow one to rip DVD's and you claimed it was legal.

    Are you now changing your position?

    Really? Your stance in this thread has been to say that millions are ripping DVD's because it's legal.
     
  20. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    i do not consider this as "fair use" simply because it was for monetary gain.
    then again if the piece was short enough the producers could claim it came from anywhere.

    i also do not consider copying movie DVDs as fair use either.
    there is simply no reason for it except 3.
    1. archival (historical) purposes
    2. manufacturing defects.
    3. user negligence.

    number 2 is dealt with by the manufacturer by replacement.
    number 3, i'm sorry but negligence on your part is, well, YOUR fault.

    in my opinion it's also illegal to let anyone other than the purchaser to view a copyrighted movie except by arrangement with the manufacturer.
     
  21. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
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    Nah, that one's just a red herring. Nobody is claiming that circumvention is copyright infringment. The point is that there's another law - the DMCA - that makes circumvention illegal on its own, even if you don't do it to infringe a copyright. The fact that this cripples people's ability to do non-infringing things is exactly why people don't like the DMCA, and why they want it amended to clearly allow such Fair Uses, and why it has resulted in a morass of unclear legal precedents.

    Adoucette, for his part, recognizes this popular distaste for the mess Congress created by engaging in a give-away to monied interests at the expense of individual Fair Use rights as an instance of threatening disrespect for authority. It follows from his authoritarian nature that such complaints must be wrong and stupid, and so he has inferred from that that there is no issue with Fair Use rights and that Congress crafted a wise and just and unproblematic law that only falls on pirates and other criminals. He must do this, or he couldn't go around demanding even more heavy-handed authoritarian actions against pirates as he is wont to do - he'd have to admit that such invites overreach, disrespect for individual rights, and corporate favoritism and so generally points out exactly the standard complaints about authority that he consistently works to minimize and disregard.
     
  22. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    43,184
    Well..
    So anytime I buy a movie I would have to watch it alone? I can't watch it with friends or family?
     
  23. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Only in some countries Bells.
    But the point is, just linking to the site is NOT illegal.
    And that's what James and your claim has been, that a LINK to the site, for the purpose of showing the software exists, or as Trippy and I have been trying to do, without being able to post links, is to discuss what is on the site as far as legality.

    Indeed it's obvious during this discussion that quite a few people have gone to one of these sites just for that purpose.

    Were any of them violating any laws by doing so Bells?

    NO THEY WEREN'T


    Doesn't matter, you have trotted out your qualifications to often for your legal standings to be considered a lay opinion.

    And that is absolutely not true.

    Of course you did when you ASSURED us that if one did so, one would have no fear of jail or punishment.

    They are one class of explosives yes, but then Fireworks are another.

    Fireworks are not considered BOMBS.


    Well if the nation a user is in blocks a site it wouldn't show up would it?


    You posted a link to this post: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2898036&postcount=664

    There is no such link in that post.


    No Bells, the link you posted has a hot link to a site that contains this sort of thing:

    and



    I posted a link to show that Quad's saying that he downloads Netflix movies to a portable device was not dissimilar to copying DVDs.
    But since there is no CSS encryption involved apparently no one here thinks doing so is illegal. But the link I posted isn't selling anything and doesn't have any instructions on doing so, like your post it has a link to a link.

    For Quads case I'm sure he is basing it on the legal ruling that Circumvention isn't infringement.

    That's what's under discussion Bells.

    I know that's your opinion but then no one in the US has ever been arrested/sued for doing so, so there is no court case to support your assertion of fact.

    I on the other hand have shown LOTS of relevant case law that suggests the opposite is true.

    Yeah, and when you can provide a case where someone is actually sued/arrested for doing so, then you will have a basis for your argument.

    In the mean time you have nothing.
     

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