Firefox 49 To Offer Linux Widevine Support, Firefox Also Working On WebP Support

[starshipeleven]

Of course it isn't. One is available in infinite supply. The other isn't.

Huh? Storage space is still in finite suppy too, just bigger supply. Do you want to put some lines down here in the sand?

Err, the medium is very much worth something. Or does the paper the info is printed on (and the printing press itself for that matter) appear out of thin air?

You think ebooks appear magically out of thin air and teleport to your PC at the snap of your fingers?
They have costs too (translation, servers, advertising), less than physical but there still are, and can't be ignored.

And that is still ignoring the elephant in the room, the poor fucker that spent a long time writing the stuff and took the large risk of simply not going on sale (so wasting all the work), does get a share too (usually not that fair with physical copies).

You still don't get what stealing actually is. It's depriving the original owner of the use of what was stolen.

No, it is taking something without asking the owner's permission. You should not care if you deprive them or not, that stuff is NOT yours so it is NOT your call on what you should do with it or what is right or wrong with it.

Otherwise it's all the same bs again you can hear from thieves of physical stuff, "oh, but they have insurance" "oh, but they are throwing this away anyway", "oh, but they have so much of this that they won't notice" and so on.

Stealing is taking something that is NOT yours, period.

No, that's the whole effin' point! *You* brought up crime. You can't backtrack now with "that's an unimportant detail".

I didn't, I said that laws are crafted also to follow other things like enforceability, and the fact that the lobbies want easy copyright enforcement for BIG companies and hard enforcement for small companies or individuals.

We're not stealing shit, so your argument is invalid.

Yes you are, my argument is still valid.

[starshipeleven]

Ok, bring it on then. Fine me and then 250 million other people. Good luck.

I'm not a copyright holder, and also, I'm not stupid. Piracy drives legit sales and allows a convenient scapegoat in case of failures.

[smitty3268]

FYI: torrent protocol does not hide your IP, so yeah, they can track down everyone at any time they want (and in the US every now and then they actually do so), it's not like it's hard.

Please note that while your public IP is dynamic, your ISP knows very well who's using what IP right now and for a while, so they track down your ISP contract, and then you pretty easily.

That said, even if something is not enforceable it does not mean it is right to let it happen, or that ALL unenforceable things are automatically tyranny.

They definitely track the IP addresses of people connected to trackers, and send warnings to ISPs to tell you to stop.

Whether your ISP forwards that warning to you or just throws it away depends on who your internet comes from.

Of course, there's always the no-logging VPN services, though it'd be pretty easy for the government to shut those down if they really tried.

Other quick takes on the discussion here:

Copyright infringement is NOT equal to theft. They are two totally distinct legal terms describing different types of crimes. However, that doesn't make it OK.

99% of people who say they're breaking the law out of "civil disobedience" are just attempting to justify their behavior to themselves. It's not civil disobedience, it's you wanting to take something and not pay for it.

I tend to be sympathetic towards people who fileshare occasionally, especially those behind stupid country restrictions where you can't get stuff right away or at all, but people who try to make excuses and pretend to be morally superior because they're fighting the power are really annoying. And encouraging people to pirate all they can definitely falls into that camp.

[Gusar]

Huh? A book written on paper is not the same as a ebook?

Of course it isn't. One is available in infinite supply. The other isn't.

The ownership isn't in the medium, but in the information, as the only thing that constitutes something wort anything is the information, not the medium.

Err, the medium is very much worth something. Or does the paper the info is printed on (and the printing press itself for that matter) appear out of thin air?

Which is still stealing, because the property protected by copyright is not of the physical copy, but of the information stored in it.

You still don't get what stealing actually is. It's depriving the original owner of the use of what was stolen. If I download an ebook, the author and/or publisher still has the information (the "property") and can still use it. But if I take a book from a store, they are deprived of the use of it, they can't sell it anymore.

Read the map (or other sources). 22 member states of EU signed it on their own.
Germany is the only big EU nation that didn't ratify it (plus a bunch of other smaller nations that don't really matter).

Nope, you got that wrong. Germany didn't even sign it. 22 countries did, but after the rejection by the Parliament, they did not ratify it. Even that is in your very link: "many countries in Europe that have signed the treaty have set aside ratification in response to public outcry, effectively hampering the ratification and implementation of the treaty."

That's a implementation detail

No, that's the whole effin' point! *You* brought up crime. You can't backtrack now with "that's an unimportant detail".

When big companies hide behind law it's bad and we must fight it by stealing shit, but when you hide behind law to steal shit is good. Double standards detected.

We're not stealing shit, so your argument is invalid.

[duby229]

FYI: torrent protocol does not hide your IP, so yeah, they can track down everyone at any time they want (and in the US every now and then they actually do so), it's not like it's hard.

Please note that while your public IP is dynamic, your ISP knows very well who's using what IP right now and for a while, so they track down your ISP contract, and then you pretty easily.

That said, even if something is not enforceable it does not mean it is right to let it happen, or that ALL unenforceable things are automatically tyranny.

Which is totally beside the point. I don't have to be anonymous. I personally don't care about anonymity. I'll keep doing exactly what I know full well is the right choice in the open. Download it, stream it, share it, whatever it takes.

[duby229]

Uhm, no. Just downloading it is a crime and can be fined. http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-digital.html

Ok, bring it on then. Fine me and then 250 million other people. Good luck.

[starshipeleven]

I'm not so sure about that. In the end so many people torrent there is no possible way to enforce copywrite infringement on them. Governments may be able to enforce the worst cases, but that's exactly what tyranny is, selectively enforcing otherwise unenforceable law. The problem is not filesharing, the problem is copywrite law.

FYI: torrent protocol does not hide your IP, so yeah, they can track down everyone at any time they want (and in the US every now and then they actually do so), it's not like it's hard.

Please note that while your public IP is dynamic, your ISP knows very well who's using what IP right now and for a while, so they track down your ISP contract, and then you pretty easily.

That said, even if something is not enforceable it does not mean it is right to let it happen, or that ALL unenforceable things are automatically tyranny.

[starshipeleven]

EDIT: Actually there is an older law called the Fair Use Act that specifically covers entertainment. It was written in a time before computers, so the terminology in the law requires some interpretation to make it work with modern concepts. But it is all there.

Fair Use covers PARTIAL use of a work for educational or similar purposes.
Watching a full media for entertainment does not and never did fall under that.

[starshipeleven]

But, here is where it gets goofy. Copywrite infringement in America means that you took someone's copyrighted material and used it in some fashion that made a profit. Watching video's for your own personal entertainment is not infringement.

Uhm, no. Just downloading it is a crime and can be fined. http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-digital.html

[starshipeleven]

It's exactly because the "property" (the use of quotes is deliberate) is not physical that the rules are different.

Huh? A book written on paper is not the same as a ebook? Aren't them the same words written by the same person?
(the same applies to other media).
The ownership isn't in the medium, but in the information, as the only thing that constitutes something wort anything is the information, not the medium.

Well yes, if we were talking about stealing, there wouldn't be much to talk about. But we're not talking about stealing, we're talking about copyright infringement.

Which is still stealing, because the property protected by copyright is not of the physical copy, but of the information stored in it.

You do know that the EU rejected ACTA, don't you? It's right there in your link! "On 4 July 2012, the European Parliament declined its consent, effectively rejecting it, 478 votes to 39, with 165 abstentions."

Read the map (or other sources). 22 member states of EU signed it on their own.
Germany is the only big EU nation that didn't ratify it (plus a bunch of other smaller nations that don't really matter).

Also, no, peer-to-peer filesharing is *not* criminal in the US, it's a matter of civil law.

That's a implementation detail because otherwise they would be basically forced to shut down everything by force at the slight order of copyright holders, and this would help too much also small-sized copyright holders, and this cannot happen, only big companies with $$$ must be protected, so that cannot happen.
When big companies hide behind law it's bad and we must fight it by stealing shit, but when you hide behind law to steal shit is good. Double standards detected.