Daniel Voyles

This post became too long for one sitting, so it has been divided. Read the first part here.

Now we can move into the point of my original post – file sharing sites, BitTorrent, and other methods of distributing media are not piracy. They are methods of distribution. Piracy can be defined loosely as robbing or violence committed against someone or something (a corporation perhaps). When someone downloads a movie via Megaupload or a song via Frostwire they are not robbing anyone nor committing an act of violence. The RIAA and MPAA would have you believe that they are being robbed of income they would have received if the CD/DVD would have been sold in a store. That seems like a reasonable analogy, but they ignore the fact that research has been performed that shows one of three things:

1. The person is a fan of the artist or movie and will purchase the work anyway.
2. The person would never have purchased the music or movie.
3. The person has purchased the item previously and is obtaining a digital copy.

Think about those items. If #1 is true, then the RIAA/MPAA has not lost any money. The person who got their copy of the work through an illegal distribution channel is going to give money to pay for the work, they merely used a different path to get the work at one point. If we consider #2, then the RIAA/MPAA still have not lost any money because the person has no intention of purchasing a DVD/CD or going to the theater. #2 is what the big corporations point out and hope you don’t think about too much. #2 has always existed, however this person can now download and have the music easily instead of making a tape copy or ripping a CD to their computer. #2 would never have purchased the work even if file sharing sites did not exist.

I am most likely to be in the #3 category should I ever download a work. I have purchased only a few CDs in the past few years for myself. Generally, I attribute this to getting older and not caring for much pop music. Still, I have purchased several hundred CDs and DVDs over my lifetime. If my ‘Alice in Chains:Unplugged’ CD gets scratched, I would easily consider downloading a copy from a torrent. Does this make me a criminal? No, it means that I used an illegal distribution channel to obtain another copy of a work that I paid for previously. The big corporations do not like this because it does not use hard media channels they control like DVD or CD purchases.

None of these acts constitutes piracy. What these acts do amount to is using illegal distribution channels to get a copy of a work. People obtained an illegal copy without using the proper distribution channel. There was no violence. There was no robbing since 1 and 3 will pay or have paid for the work downloaded, and 2 has no intention of ever paying for the work. Unfortunately piracy is an emotional word that people can relate to, and the news outlets can use this word to scare you or sound interesting.

That is my explanation of why there is no such thing as piracy. Yes, a copy may have been made illegally, but that means copyright law was broken. This does not mean someone or something (company) was robbed or violently attacked. People sold illegal copies of cassettes and CDs at flea markets however they were just called criminals. The same can be said for those using file-sharing websites, but it sounds much more evil to call them PIRATES. While these vicious pirates keep making illegal copies, the industries keep making record profits.

This post became so long that I divided it between two separate posts. This first post attempts to explain that the MPAA/RIAA are good at hiding money, do make money, and have always controlled distribution channels.

So, people have been saying for the past decade how movie/film/TV piracy is destroying the livelihoods of everyone from the janitor at NBC Studios to the radio DJ to the kid selling CDs at your local music shop. Websites which allow the easy transfer of media between people have been described as nothing short of abominations and safe harbors for criminals. We (collective) thieves and criminals only use these networks to steal material from the good and hard-working people who create the blockbuster movies we watch while munching popcorn every Friday night. We thieves rob the MPAA mebers of the ability to make more movies by stealing their hard work. We take food from the mouths of camera men and their children. Musical acts such as Jay-Z and Taylor Swift can not keep putting out albums if piracy continues unabated. Every song we thieves download from file-sharing sites takes away money that could be used to sign and develop the next Metallica or Ozzy Osbourne. File-sharing sites have no legitimate purpose other than to steal. This has been and is the mantra from the RIAA and MPAA.

Well, there are some major fallacies and discrepancies between what the MPAA and RIAA would have you believe and the truth. To begin with, the MPAA and RIAA members have been reporting record profits despite the horrific piracy that threatens their existence. So, that shuts down the argument that these organizations are unable to keep the lights on in the office. It would seem to me that this means they should be expanding, and are not struggling to survive as they would have us believe.

Secondly, the movie and record industries use some very creative accounting to keep any movie or record from ever making a profit. Would you believe that Star Wars has never made a penny? It’s true. The guy who played Darth Vader (under the suit) has not received a penny of the over 1/2 BILLION dollars which Star Wars has actually netted. The RIAA is pretty good at this type of accounting too. Put simply, these corporations are broke as can be if you subscribe to their accounting methods. Fortunately, we live in the real world and can see that they are merely cheating the United States tax system. So, piracy isn’t breaking the bank, then why are these trade groups saying that it is destroying them?

We should look at the business models of the RIAA and MPAA to begin to explain their arguments/lies. Until the past few years music and movies had always been bought and sold as hard copies. This holds true for VHS, DVD, BD, record, tape, CD and if you reach way back – 8-track. Members of the RIAA and MPAA have always been the primary controllers of these media. Sure, independent shops existed, but big companies have a close relationship with radio stations and other ways to promote their hard copy productions. Movie studios do a great job of using fast food toys to advertise to kids. These facts show that until very recently media distribution was performed via hard copy by large corporations. There were no mass distribution channels without one of the studios behind you.

Recently, this has changed with the advent of iTunes, Spotify, BitTorrent, and other file-sharing sites.

 Part 2 will be released later and explains why piracy is nothing more than illegal distribution, and seems to not harm the industries in actuality.

In part I, we learned about some free and completely legal ways to watch TV and movies. In part II, there was some long explanation, and a brief bit of some information about how to watch your shows that are not well-defined. The laws contradict each other, so you are on your own down that path.

Now, I will explain the completely illegal ways to get your shows. Please know that I do not suggest doing anything illegal, but feel that you should know about these methods so that you can avoid them and any trouble that comes with using them.

The first, easiest, and most common illegal way I see of getting music, shows, and movies is LimeWire. There are legal reasons for using Lime, but the use of it is not for those reasons. Lime is used mostly to illegally ‘share’ music and other files across the Internet.

People like to claim that they are only ‘sharing’ these files with their friends or, really, complete strangers across the Internet. That, is a lie. Not about what they’re doing, but pretending that it is legal. People are taking material that they do not own the copyright for and giving it away to others. They are also downloading material illegally from other LimeWire users. Along with the illegal files comes a big risk for viruses, also something I see a lot on PCs people ask me to fix.

Up next is Bit Torrent. Torrents are similar to LimeWire, except that they are used more in legal ways, such as sharing legal discs to install Linux and other free information. Unfortunately, a lot more people use torrents to illegally download movies, music, and more from others. So, Bit Torrent is covered under this illegal section.

How torrents differ from regular downloads is that it downloads from many different users in ‘chunks’. It operates on the idea that the more you ‘share’, the better/faster you can get files. It works out well for everyone because the more people share a file, the faster it downloads for everyone.

After downloading files illegally, the most popular way to steal (yes, it is stealing) material is to rent it from the video store, borrow a CD, or find another way to get a digital copy and rip it or copy it onto your PC.

People have mentioned several times that they rent a DVD when it comes out, rip it, and keep the copy they made on their PC. Once again, this is completely illegal. These people rent a piece of copy-written material, not own it, and make a copy (that may be legal if they owned it).

There is no salvation for those who rent a DVD or borrow a CD to copy it. Ripping most anything without owning a copy yourself is stealing from those who put it out there for sale.

As always, there are exceptions: if something has been released under a license that is free to distribute, like some written works and all Linux distributions. These materials are different than most things, and are the exceptions.

Generally, if someone downloads material that is copyrighted, they are breaking the law. If anyone is ripping material that they don’t own a copy of, they are also breaking the law.

This is the simple version, but gives a decent overview. As always, this is not legal advice. Do your own research.

In the first entry of this series, I explained some of the legal ways to get your television shows legally. I feel bad that I forgot to mention Netflix. You can watch some movies instantly using their service.

Now into the hazy world of ‘questionable’ ways to get television, music, and movies. What I talk about here and how you feel it applies will depend on how you interpret it. The reason for this is that the laws in our country are designed to deal with tangible and firm things like printed books, records, and actual reels of film. These laws were written before computers were common and before written, recorded, and filmed material could be transferred all over the world within minutes.

Many laws have been written to try to close the gap between written law and technology, but they mostly fail miserably. Most prominent of this legislation is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA was written by Congress, therefore it was written by people who are generally ignorant of technology (in my opinion) and who are heavily influenced by lobbyists. Lobbyists are paid by companies like RCA, Paramount, Sony, etc. So, who do you think the DMCA favors? Correct.

With that history out of the way, we can move forward with our review of the blurry area: copies of compact discs, DVDs, and other material you own. When you buy a CD, you do not get unlimited rights to do whatever you want with it. You only get a copy that you can listen to, or watch if it is a DVD.

Now, like with an article in a newspaper, there is such a thing as ‘fair-use’ that lets you use pieces of the article for parody, discussion, etc. However, you cannot reproduce the whole work without permission. That is just plagiarism. With a CD/DVD, you are allowed to make a ‘backup copy for archival purposes’ as long as you own a legal copy of the original work.

Here is the ironic part: you cannot make a backup copy of the CD/DVD if it has any kind of copy protection, according to the DMCA.

So, it is legal to have a backup according to law, but you cannot make that copy. Kind of twisted isn’t it? To my knowledge, there is no significant challenge to this contradiction so that we can know what is illegal and what isn’t.

I have gone over all of this explanation to say that if you can legally make copies of DVDs and CDs, then you could rip them to your laptop or desktop computer. Once they are on your hard drive you can watch them any time you like and not have to worry about the discs becoming scratched or lost. The discs will be safely stored in your closet.

With more and more television shows being released on DVD as complete seasons and some complete series’ runs, you could easily pick up your favorites, rip them to your PC and watch them at your leisure.

For that matter, you could find a site to download recordings of your favorite new shows and keep them on your drive. Networks say that this is illegal, and we geeks say it is no different than using a VCR to record from TV like many people did less than 5 years ago.

Use your own judgment, as I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Tread carefully and read up before you make any decisions about whether to rip anything or download episodes of shows.

In a word: maybe. The most deciding factor will be if you have a broadband connection to the Internet. If you don’t know, broadband is loosely a cable, satellite, or DSL connection. Sometimes, you can even use a wireless connection from some local providers. If you are still using a dial-up connection, you are not going to want to try watching video, but you probably knew that.

Finally, you need to look and see if there are shows that you like available online. There are many, many different ways to watch your shows and movies online. To be fair, I will talk about the legal, hazy, and outright illegal ways to watch them. Hazy and illegal will be covered in the next two columns. We are in NO WAY advocating anything illegal, but you should know about them so you can avoid them.

My personal favorite site to watch shows on is Hulu.com. Hulu has a very good looking site with a lot of content to watch. If you like Fox, NBC, or Comedy Central television, you should give them a shot. There are a few commercials in some shows, and some without. The good news is that there are less commercials than a regular show (4 on average). Hulu even has movies to watch, mostly older, but totally free.

Hulu has just launched a player for you to download to your desktop. It is brand new as I write this for you, so I don’t have a lot of experience with it. If it is anything like the site, it will be smooth and easy to use. Please go check it out and let me know what you think via askageek@register-news.com .

Another site I recommend is TV.com. I have not used it much, but it has been good when I checked it out occasionally. TV.com is owned by CBS, however it has shows from different companies. Go see if it suits your taste.

A slightly different way to watch shows and discover new material is Miro (getmiro.com). Miro is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It truly is available for any operating system you use. Miro is a Bit Torrent (I’ll explain later) and netcast client. It will download torrent files and netcasts for you while you surf or watch other shows in its player. There are videos of all types – gardening, news, talk, etc. available for you to subscribe to in the Miro directory. All of these subscriptions are free, so go see what you want to watch/hear.

To clarify for anyone who may not know, a netcast is a video or audio show produced for download over the Internet. Netcasts are also referred to as ‘podcasts, vodcasts (video)’, and other terms. There are good and bad, just like television and radio. Torrents are downloads that pull from a lot of different places to get you the download faster. They work really well, and I will explain them better under ‘illegal’, even though they are not.

The last legal way I can think of to watch free TV is to go to the station sites and watch your favorites there. Not every station, especially cable stations, offer their shows online. A good deal of them do, so you should go look around and see which ones are out there that you like.

I was fired-up to go see Terminator: Salvation at the midnight opening show. I talked Hooch and Ashley into going with me, and we had fun there and watched Angels & Demons until T4 started. Surprisingly, the show was not a sellout. I had thought it would be, but it gave me room to breathe (unlike National Treasure 2).

We watched the show, and it was entertaining. We ooh-ed and ahh-ed at the sweet looking terminators, what little time they spent on the screen. Bale wasn’t horrible, his wife just kinda stood there being pregnant, and the acting overall was decent.

Unfortunately, they tried to connect the characters and audience and failed – miserably.

I’ve been trying to figure out why the connection didn’t happen. It was one of those things that kept bugging me every now and then. Why couldn’t I make the connection with characters I liked and a franchise I thoroughly enjoy?

Today, Erich had Spiderman 3 on while I was job searching and it hit me. The Terminator franchise has never been about the deep character empathy like in the Spiderman franchise, something they tried to force in the latest film.

For example: When aunt May gets attacked we feel for her. Peter loves MJ, and she loves him.

Unfortunately, I understand the characters in the Terminator movies, I just don’t empathize with them. Frankly, I don’t see how anyone could. They face sci-fi problems that we can’t even imagine. It’s loosely based in reality, but not enough so that I feel connected to John Connor or anyone else in the franchise.

While Spiderman is full of fantasy as well, it is also tightly wound in with the fabric of everyone’s life in the film. We have all felt loss, anger, and most importantly love. These emotions are present in T4 as well, but not to the degree or as realistically as in Spiderman.

Maybe it’s just me, and sound off if you think so. I just don’t feel the latest incarnation is what it should be. Of course, I am a little bitter about FOX canceling the television series that I liked. Oh well.

I just received word from Jeremy that my first bit of writing for our local newspaper will probably be appearing this Friday. Yay, I’ll be somewhat legitimate.

My first bite will only be a short piece about who I am and some background information. Nothing too fancy, but it will let people know who I am and perhaps help them relate to me.

From there, we will see how evolution takes the writing and me through its life-cycle. Maybe it will move to a Q&A style, perhaps it will be me posting things I like, and perhaps it will just fizzle out into nothing.

Jeremy is going to put my work in the online area of the R-N I suppose. Guess print is too expensive for an un-proven bit of work such as myself.

If you don’t mind, go check my corner out and see what you think. If nothing else, the hits should show interest.

I’m only way behind most of the world, but I finally watched ‘The Bucket List’ last night. I had just closed-up the gas station and I was home relaxing. The television had been unplugged, so I had to manually (I know, right?) flip through channels and see what was on until the guide updated.

As I was flipping through HBO/Cinemax, I came across Morgan Freeman I stopped. Generally anything that has Freeman in it I like, so it stayed on while I surfed from my laptop. Once the Internet started to bore me and I shut down the lappy, ‘Bucket List started to draw me in more and more.

I have to say that it went by pretty quick (I started watching when Freeman and Nicholson are in the hospital), but was still very entertaining. Then came the end… I consider myself a pretty un-emotional guy. It takes some pretty deep stuff for me to get weepy or even slightly emotionally involved. This is doubly true for movies. I mean, ffs, they’re not even real.

The last 20 minutes of this movie got me completely weepy. I won’t ruin it in case there is actually someone who hasn’t seen it, but make sure you have the Kleenex handy by the time pyramids are on-screen (you’ll see).

Just in case anyone out there hasn’t seen it, go rent it or catch it on HBO. The movie is definitely worth your time, and it makes a great point that we all should have our own ‘bucket list’ and make damn sure we accomplish all of that list.