Devil’s Advocate: Dallas Buyers Club decision will force Turnbull’s hand on Internet piracy

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25 COMMENTS

  1. There is strong evidence that the Government would roll over and let this happen … after all, it has happened before.

    Corporations will always be put ahead of people by our 2 major parties! instead of forcing them to fix their broken business models, they’ll just attack us!

    • And when they do try and target “corporations” it’s all a sham that goes back to us anyway..

      “Netflix Tax” anyone?

    • Regardless of which side of the fence in the debate one sits, it is an accurate statement. In law it is a breach or infringement of copyright. You’ll note in Justice Perram’s orders he refers to infringement or breach, but never theft. Those arguing for continuation and expansion of the copyright monopoly often use incorrect and emotive language.

  2. “copyright cannot be stolen — merely breached”

    The mantra of the thieving luddite who is trying to defend their actions (to themselves and others)… or who is struggling with the concept that Intellectual Property is an actual thing.

    • So what would you call the thieving of dollars when Australia gets charged more than other countries

      • Apparently in Australia, data distributed from a data centre in the US costs four times as much as it does in the US…. or something…

      • yeah, the only Pirates here are Dallas Buyers Club.

        You can rent it on Amazon for $2.99 (except likely it’ll be geoblocked for Australians!!) or buy it from Amazon for $3.99, but they wanted $20 in the court case – PIRATES!

    • Pretty sure Renai’s just talking semantics here. He’s not saying breaching copyright isn’t stealing.

      • There is a reason it’s called “copyright infringement”. This is a legal term to indicate that pirating a film etc is not “stealing” something, as you are not depriving the original creator of the object itself. You are merely not complying with licensing terms for using/viewing a copy of the object.

        So no, Internet piracy is not theft, it is legally infringement of a licence.

        • “So no, Internet piracy is not theft, it is legally infringement of a licence.”

          Illegal infringement of a licence perhaps…

          I doubt Neil Gane and AFACT would consider internet piracy legal…

          • That’s the beauty of the law, it doesn’t matter what a lobbyist or spokesperson for a special interest group thinks, it’s quite specific about what it is or isn’t.

            It’s copyright infringement, which is a civil wrong, not criminal (except for a limited number of circumstances prescribed in the Act, none of which have been raised by DBC during the proceedings).

          • That’s probably why there’s law defining what copyright infringement is. Fun fact : It’s not the same law as the law defining what theft is.

            Learning is fun!

      • You ever wonder why copyright infringement on the scale of one user downloading content for personal use (vs large scale reproduction to make money) ends up in civil litigation and theft ends up in criminal courts..?

        I’m guessing not…

        Saying copywrite infringement = theft is asinine. They are two different things and while they do have some superficial similarities, they are dealt with very differently under the law. The dead give away is that in infringement, something isn’t stolen, it’s replicated. If you broke in to a studio and stole the one copy of their upcoming release, then you are stealing. If you manage to get a copy of it, you are infringing copywrite…

        This is not a justification, I haven’t pirated anything in years (that being said, I haven’t really watched much TV for years either), just a statement of fact. A fact sound enough that our legal system recognises it as accurate, not just semantics… X D

    • Stealing and Copyright Infringement are different things. Hence why they have different LEGAL definitions.

      If they weren’t different, they would be treated in the same manner.

      By equating Copyright infringement with Theft, you weaken your own argument, as you are not arguing the correct elements.

      In practice they are similar. As in Person A gets something without paying for it.
      But the key difference is that Person B, the wronged person, has lost no intrinsic value they still have the exact same product that they had to start with. They have lost a “potential” sale, but that is not the same thing. (Note this is not a legal definition either)

      Oh and in regards to “you wouldn’t steal a car”. I put it to you that yes if people could identically copy a car leaving the original in place with no harm to the original user, then yes they would copy it… a lot…

      • 3D printing anyone?

        Anyhoo, I get really cross with the Content Mafia conflating Infringement with Stealing, it’s intellectually dishonest and peoples behaviors are largely driven by the stupidity and intransigence of the the Content Mafia’s own behavior! This has been proven time and time again by Apple iTunes, Spotify and Netflix etc.

        If you make content easy and affordable for people to access, they WILL pay for it … but if you make it difficult for us, (like seriously, trying to watch a BluRay makes me turn Hulk!! if it wasnt for the quality I’d never watch one again!), we will find easier ways to watch stuff eg:

        http://img.labnol.org/di/pirated-DVD-movie.png

        • There in is the issue if someone ripping off your product offers a better service than you can of course you are going to lose sales. I buy my games because steam is easier. I subscribe to Spotify because it is easier than buying CDs(or heck most digital music) I subscribe to Netflix because the experience is better and easier than buying DVDs/BRDs Foxtel Ect.. However if the product is made worse by having to source legit or just playing ripping me off because I live in Australia or only involves giving some money to satan (I mean Rupert Murdoch) I will find ways around it.

          • I’ve decided to download xfiles, because ten doesn’t stick to its guide start and end times.
            I’ve been missing the first 3 minutes of the show consistently.
            Therefore instead of seeing any ads, I will see none, and on the US schedule, instead of the AU schedule.

          • Audio and video quality honestly doesn’t matter to me, if I’m downloading I probably won’t end up with as good a picture quality as I could get on free to air.
            But being able to actually watch the opening sequence of an Xfiles episode is critical. I missed the first couple minutes of episode three, which basically set the tone for the whole episode – an episode that pretty much all my friends were saying was great, and what I saw was pretty good, but I was just confused for the first 5 minutes because channel ten are lying about their guide times.

            Shrug, I pay for Netflix, and whitelist my ad blocker for sites I regularly visit. But this would be like a website deleting the first paragraph of every news report unless you read the previous article because they are worried people will repost it… Upshot is ill go straight to the AP news article, instead of reading their word for word repost.

          • The best bit is when Channel 10 stops showing X-Files at all for a few weeks, then returns it at the ultra-convenient timeslot of 11pm!

            This kind of bull is what has stopped me from tuning in to FTA for 3 years. I’ll just buy the damn DVD.

      • Wouldn’t steal a car… but would steal the theme music for an anti-piracy video.
        Just in case anyone missed it, the music in that advertisement was stolen from the composer. Paid for a once off licence, then used it worldwide.
        Google search… anti pirating theme music

    • “The mantra of the thieving luddite who is trying to defend their actions (to themselves and others)… or who is struggling with the concept that Intellectual Property is an actual thing.”
      The mantra of someone with a tenuous grasp of the English language and the laws that govern us.

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