The movie industry, record industry, and yes, the porn industry have some legitimate concern about illegal unpaid downloading of their intellectual property. Unfortunately, they try to stem the tide by draconian punishment for minor crimes like downloading. Dangerously, industry interests coax politicians to enact overcriminalization laws that seriously hamper internet freedom and mete out harsh prison sentences, like SOPA in the US and ACTA in Europe.
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Human-Stupidity Analysis: historical precedents and alternative solutions
Interestingly, we had similar problems when Gutenberg invented printing, when the shellac record was invented, with advent of the copying machine, the tape recorder etc.
When we download something we really like, we would love to pay for it. Unfortunately we don’t know how. An easy mechanism for voluntary pay should be created. Furthermore, many countries introduced a tax on blank DVD, CD, copying machines, DVD recording machines that was to be used exclusively to pay off copyright owners. As a solution to the copyright dilemma, a similar monthly tax has been proposed on computer equipment. Harsh but much better then criminalization of an entire population and internet surveillance.
Human-Stupidity, tongue in cheek, wonders if these taxes are evenly passed on the the porn industry, which disproportionately suffers from illegal copying.
We also want to remember that it is morally unjust and illicit money grabbing, when copyright owners charge the SAME prices for downloads (that cost almost nothing) then for physical CD and shellac disks that entail huge production, transport, distribution and storage cost. This is the same as if we were charged the same price for books as they cost when someone had to copy them in hand-writing, before the advent of printing. Prices ought to drop considerably due to technical progress.
I am glad you added this.
And let’s not forget one more thing, when industries talk about “damage” or “loss” or “stealing”, they are not talking about any REAL physically existing money here. They are talking about “possible”/POTENTIAL money that they BELIEVE they “could have” made if everything went according to their plans. One always has to be suspicious about laws that punish only on the basis of a “possibility” and not something that has happened in reality.