Saturday, March 10, 2007

Punishing the innocent.

14 comments:

Kindralas said...

It's true, if no one ever did anything wrong, then no one would ever have to be punished.

Shocho said...

It's true, if we punish everybody, then some of them will deserve it.

Let's just give everybody speeding tickets, then we'll make sure to catch the ones that are really speeding.

Kindralas said...

A better metaphor:

Let's warn everyone not to speed, so that, hopefully, most people won't speed.

That's kinda what speed limit signs are for.

Shocho said...

A fine metaphor indeed. That doesn't work either.

Mkae said...

No surprise shocho, but I'm not sure I agree with your position (if I'm even clear what that is).

I liken it to the defense of a trade mark. If someone is copying your mark (say through an online version of your card game) then you have to vigorously defend your marks so that if there is a legal challenge, you can prove that you were on the ball.

Kathy said...

From what I remember, the world spun around just fine before all these strong-arming scare tactics were added at the beginning of DVDs.

There isn't a court in the land that would throw out your bootlegging case because you weren't warned on the DVD. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, remember?

Shocho said...

1. I bought the DVD. I didn't break the law. There's no reason to treat me like a criminal.

2. If I didn't buy the DVD, this is NOT going to make me turn myself in.

3. Law enforcement is supposed to protect and serve, not accuse and harass.

4. INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY, remember that one? It's not very fashionable these days, but it's an old favorite.

Shocho said...

1. I bought the DVD. I didn't break the law. There's no reason to treat me like a criminal.

2. If I didn't buy the DVD, this is NOT going to make me turn myself in.

3. Law enforcement is supposed to protect and serve, not accuse and harass.

4. INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY, remember that one? It's not very fashionable these days, but it's an old favorite.

5. Protecting your IP means going after somebody who has stolen it. Not suing everybody that uses it. That's vigorous DEFENSE, not baseless accusation.

Mkae said...

Then I guess I don't see the issue. I'm not sure how you're being treated like a criminal.

What's far more annoying to me is sitting through commercials at the beginning of the DVD OR through menus that take upwards of a minute to show usually bad animation of the IP before you can make a selection.

Kathy said...

In how many other arenas do we happily buy products that spend time making sure that they yell at you, "We don't trust you! You suck! You can't skip us saying this! We think you're stealing from us! We hate you, our customer!"

And THEN you get to enjoy the product that you legally bought or rented.

If, when I went to a fancy restaurant, the cook came out and sat at the table for a minute telling me that he thought I was going to take samples of his food, take them to a lab, and have the recipes reverse-engineered, I would get up and leave the restaurant. I wouldn't just shrug, try to ignore the person at my table making accusations, and then happily enjoy the meal.

No one would put up with this in any other product other than DVDs and online music files. What I don't get is what good anyone thinks it does.

Kindralas said...

All things considered, I think Steve Jobs made your points far better, the point is that it is a disservice to your consumers, and I can't disagree with that. But Jobs pointed out, accurately, that such measures didn't help, and that a solution which doesn't solve is pointless.

But all things considered, it's like 5 seconds of your life gone by. For the most part, the only people who get genuinely offended are people who have pirated in the past. I make no moral judgments, I've pirated before, but stop to think of your bootlegs, concert recordings, TV shows you've taped, and various similar activities and realize that such a message is reaching its intended audience.

Namely, you.

Anonymous said...

>In how many other arenas do we
>happily buy products that spend
>time making sure that they yell
>at you, "We don't trust you!
>You suck! You can't skip us
>saying this! We think you're
>stealing from us! We hate you,
>our customer!"

Every product sold in clamshell packaging? That's a lot, sadly.

Aussie-Askew said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Aussie-Askew said...

I like the observational irony in this, reminds me of the multitude of DRM schemes tested. Basically, they haven't stopped the pirates from pirating, but they have frustrated the legitimate consumers with unplayable CDs, file/device interoperability issues and even illegally installed root-kits.

And although I see m'kae's metaphor of "copyright defense", that practise is one that I think is completely arse. In the end, it was argued and legitimized by big companies who can afford to rigourously defend their copyrights and watch out for everyone else's expiring so they can leap on them due to deeper pockets.

If I go to the trouble to gain the appropriate protections for my name/copyright X and then produce something based on it, get my money and step into a cave for 5 years (or more to the point, I do not have a copyright lawyer scouring the internet), should that mean that my right to name x should diminish?

In the meantime, the little one's get squashed. Witness the number of SWCCG fan sites that we had to send letters to for using our graphics, or the number of sites Apple ahd to ask not to use the word iPod in their name.

To me, "rigorous defense" is akin to squatters buying up missed URL renewals. Pure and simple ethic-less opportunism.